


Conversations from Q-Branch

by KtwoNtwo



Series: 2.5 Holmes' [6]
Category: James Bond (Movies), James Bond - All Media Types, NCIS, SPECTRE (2015), Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Cruelty to watches, Mission Fic, Not Season/Series 03 Compliant, Puns Happen, Snippets, Spoilers for SPECTRE, Spoilers for Skyfall
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-02 07:14:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 99
Words: 48,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2804096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KtwoNtwo/pseuds/KtwoNtwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Q-Branch exists, in part, to facilitate communication between MI6 and its agents in the field.  Short bits of communication by, between and among various characters in the 2.5 Holmes verse.</p>
<p>A series of snippets (1,000 words or less) related to Q-Branch and its denizens (especially our favorite Quartermaster).  Prompts are from a list found on DeviantART.  Each prompt is used as dialog somewhere in the snippet.  If you are interested in where each snippet fits in the overall 2.5 universe may I direct you to the <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2527745">Timeline for 2.5 Holmes</a> and its finely crafted links.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It's Like A Puzzle You See

“What’s your status Q?” James Bond asked over the coms from Q branch.

He was rewarded with a snort, “I suppose your voice in my ear is a direct result of someone thinking it funny to have us communicating the other way round.” Q sounded amused. “I’m just finishing up, why?”

Bond kept his voice calm and even, “There’s been a bomb threat. The MET is evacuating everything within a block radius of Pimlico Station. Your current location is within the evacuation zone.”

“Hopefully it’s just a threat,” Q replied. “I’d hate to have my experimental node go up in smoke before I had time to test it properly.”

“Well I’d hate to have my Quartermaster go up in smoke so I strongly suggest you get moving Q.”

James watched as Q’s location indicator on the London map currently up on screen in the operations room started to move.

“I suspect they will be sweeping in from the station side so I’ll let myself out through the Office for National Statistics,” Q commented.

The dot indicating Q’s location was under the south end of the National Statistics building when Q spoke again, “Now that’s vexing.”

“Access blocked? Since we seem to have traded roles you could just shoot the lock,” James teased.

“No 007, I’ve found the bomb.”

James looked at R who was busy converting her monitoring of the MET’s communications into a two way link.

“Get out of there Q. We’ll dispatch the nearest Bomb squad to that location,” James ordered.

“Don’t bother,” was the level reply. “If this timer is correct they won’t get here before it goes off.”

There were movement sounds over the coms but Q’s dot stayed put.

“Q?”

“Hmmm. It’s like a puzzle you see. You have to figure out which piece does what and how they connect. Oh, someone has been clever. They’ve got a mercury switch to set it off if it gets moved.”

There were more movement sounds and a couple of metallic clinks. R was talking rapidly in a low voice, presumably to someone at the MET. James didn’t say anything for fear of startling Q.

“Very sophisticated,” Q continued his monologue. “Redundant triggers, dummy wiring, they didn’t want to make this easy. Luckily there’s a finite number of ways you can set something like this up and…Ah!”

There was silence for several seconds followed by a distinct snip. James assumed it was the sound of wire cutters slicing through one or more wires. Nothing exploded. There were several more snips then silence.

After 10 seconds or so James ventured a simple “Q?”

There was an audible breath followed by Q’s, “It’s disarmed now.”

“And your status?”

“I’m O.K. James. I must say however that I prefer doing things the normal way.”

“Field work isn’t for everyone Q,” Bond replied.

When thinking about it later Bond had to admit that the flip side of that statement was also true.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompts for this series of snippets can be found here: <http://www.deviantart.com/art/100-Writing-Prompts-295453283>. Thanks to Tehuti for posting a neat list where my search engine could find it.


	2. Rain Was Falling

Sherlock Holmes was pacing round and round the sitting room in 221B. He’d pause every now and again and peer at the wall where he had tacked up a large map of London and a variety of photographs. The photos were connected to the map and to each other by bits of multicolored string. All in all it looked like a spider on LSD had attempted to spin a web on top of an esoteric piece of modern art. I continued editing my draft blog post. 

He stopped suddenly and exclaimed, “There is no way he could have been burgling a shop in Knightsbridge within 10 minutes of being spotted in Bethnal Green. All my deductions indicate he was in Knightsbridge except the eye witness who isn’t lying.” He looked at the wall again, “But rain was falling and there was no indication of water in the stairwell our witness saw him enter!” he blurted then started pacing again

“Maybe he teleported.” I joked not looking up from my laptop then continued, “Could the eye witness have been imagining things? Mistaken a similarly dressed bloke for our burglar?”

“Not with what he was wearing when Lestrade picked him up later that night. It matched the witnesses’ description exactly.”

Sherlock made another circuit of the sitting room. 

“What did the witness see or imagine he saw?” he asked rhetorically then stopped dead in his tracks. 

I’d seen this before. Momentarily he’d be off on a new series of deductions or decide that more research on a completely different subject was necessary. This time when he surfaced he grabbed his phone from off the mantle and dialed a number. Now that was different. Sherlock hated to call when he could text instead. In fact there was only one person I knew that he was more likely to call than to text.

“What would it take,” he started in without preamble “to project an image on a rainy evening capable of fooling a witness less than half a block away into thinking there was a person there?” 

As he listened to the reply his face took on a look I knew well, he was on the verge of a solution to the mystery of the teleporting thief.

“Send me a list and good luck getting your favorite agent to bring your toys back in one piece.” He paused then added “No, you only sound that frustrated when the odds of things going cleanly start getting into the 15% range.” Sherlock listened a moment longer then said “Yep” and rang off.

Less than 5 minutes later I had a document from Sherlock’s younger half-brother Quentin. As befitted the Quartermaster of MI6 it simply opened on my computer with no indication of how it got there.

“What,” I asked Sherlock, “do you want me to do with this list of random technology and irrigation system parts?”

“Forward it to Lestrade and tell him to check the alleged burglar’s financials for similar purchases. He used a projection on a fine mist of water to fool the witness. The witness didn’t notice the curtain of water because it was raining.”

I hurried to do as Sherlock asked as he settled into his chair for the first time in at least twelve hours. 

Sherlock looked at me then smiled. “When Lestrade confirms do you want Chinese?” was all he said


	3. There's a Monster in These Hills

 Q stood by the car and looked down the slope and out across the open moor. The house was nothing but a foundation now and one of the gate posts had completely disintegrated while the other stood tall and proud with its stag header only slightly battered from a stray piece of shrapnel. The stone chapel on the next hill over was old but still looked to be structurally sound having fared much better in the momentous cock up which had been the culmination of the mission code named Skyfall.

 He studied his companion. James Bond was also taking in the view. He stood straight and tall the cold wind ruffling his short blond hair. His face was weathered but still handsome; his bright blue eyes scanning the landscape intently looking for god only knew what. Q knew that the scars, both mental and physical, must ache from the piercing cold and from the location.

James was only a few months from mandatory retirement as a 00. It was unusual that a 00 lived long enough to transition out of the program so MI6 was scrambling to figure out how to use all those years of hard won experience. More importantly they were attempting to find something that would keep Bond stable enough to avoid the normal state of Ex-00’s, suicide. Q thought that they might have a decent chance by using James as an adjunct to several of the sections, Q-branch included. The key would be variety.

James had already done a training session for the A list agents which had been not only unorthodox but also quite an eye-opener for the powers that be. He had stalked into the class, looked at the training officer and growled “I’ll be back here in three hours.” He’d then looked at the group of 10 agents and simply said “Follow.” Q had found out about the exercise a half-hour later when one of the A-list agents named Ann had called her normal handler to see if she could get some technological assistance in tracking Bond. Since there was nothing “on” at the moment Q had given permission. Tracking Bond, as Q well knew, was quite an undertaking and it would give him a very good assessment of Robert’s capacity as a handler. Two and a half hours into the exercise Ann, with Robert’s assistance, managed to confront Bond in a local pub less that 10 minutes away from Vauxhall Cross by replacing his half consumed beer with a martini, shaken not stirred. Bond had laughed and accompanied her back to MI6.

Q came out of his musings to see James moving down slope heading in the direction of the Chapel. After a short hesitation Q followed. He entered the chapel to find Bond on one knee beside the first pew. His hand was on the stones tracing the outline of something. Q couldn’t see anything on the floor but he knew that Bond was remembering the night when M had bled out in his arms. Q moved closer unsure exactly what to do and heard James mumble something indistinct. James stood then and looked at Q and held out his hand. Q moved to join him. Together they exited the chapel and stood on the steps.

“I wonder” James remarked “if the estate could be repurposed as a training facility. It’s remote enough and local legend says there’s a monster in these hills.”

“Well,” Q replied “we could add some verisimilitude to that tale if you’d like. Judging from the reports I had of that little training exercise you ran the other day ‘monster’ is the least of the names you got called.”

“I don’t think I would make a good full time monster.” James retorted, “At least not right now. I promised her that I’d watch over you lot and besides it’s a little too far from a certain evil overlord.”

Q knew then that everything would be just fine.


	4. It was locked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A three sentence fiction!

The sound of a muffled shot came through the coms and Q let out an audible sigh but resisted the urge to put his head in his hands. 

"I assure you Quartermaster I put my back into it first," James Bond's seductive voice purred in his ears. "It was locked."


	5. The Sky Was So Heavy I Could Almost Touch It

“That is an absolutely atrocious first sentence,” Sherlock commented as he settled in his chair with a plate of takeaway.

He was referring to my draft blog post which happened to be up on my laptop that was sitting on the coffee table. I’d been attempting to write up the most recent case when Quentin, Sherlock’s half-brother, had arrived with Thai. Ever since he’d recovered from being kidnapped Quentin had taken to randomly showing up at 221B with food and drink. Given the surveillance that Mycroft kept up on Sherlock I suspect that it was his way of reassuring both his brothers that he was alive and well. It also had the pleasant side effect that, regardless of whether there was a case on or not, Sherlock would actually eat a decent amount of whatever Quentin brought.

Quentin, who was sitting on the sofa, set down his plate and turned the laptop so he could read it.

“It’s not that bad Sherlock,” he remarked. “In fact it’s markedly better than what I get from most of the agents and the entire 00 section.” Quentin was one of the few people who could make that statement since he happened to be the Quartermaster of MI6.

Sherlock snorted.

“No,” Quentin continued, “I get an AAR with the statement the phone casing failed under extreme stress conditions when what actually happened was the agent attempted to use it to stop a blast door from closing.”

“That still doesn’t make the first sentence any better,” Sherlock said around a mouthful of Pad See Ew. “The sky was so heavy I could almost touch it…really John you couldn’t be more original?”

“Oi,” I objected “It’s a blog post. I’m not expecting to win a Booker or a Bulwer-Lytton for it!”

I looked up from my plate and noticed that I was the recipient of two identical I don’t understand the reference Holmesian stares.

“Mann-Booker prize…best original novel in English published in the U.K.?"

That earned me an Obviously look from Quentin and a Really John, fiction? one from Sherlock.

“Well a Bulwer-Lytton is sort of the reverse,” I hastened to explain. “Bulwer-Lytton was a Victorian novelist whose most famous published work started with the phrase It was a dark and stormy night. Well some English professor in California got the idea to have a bad writing contest to determine the worst first sentence of a fictional novel. If you think mine was bad you should see what they give awards to on an annual basis.”

Quentin started typing one handed on my laptop. After a couple of clicks he almost choked on what he was eating because he was trying not to laugh. Sherlock grabbed the laptop and started reading. His eyebrows went up

That was the start of a rather interesting and enjoyable couple of hours. The commentary on the Bulwer-Lytton winners as provided by Quentin was not only scathing but also hysterically funny. Sherlock’s deductions about the writers themselves as based on syntax, word choice and punctuation were interesting. I, of course, had to occasionally explain a pop culture reference.

After we’d dissected the last of the winners Sherlock slumped in his chair and remarked “Well now I’m going to have to delete all those tortured sentences. Although the exercise wasn’t completely useless, I now know that your writing could be much, much worse.”

I took his statement as a compliment while Quentin just started laughing again.

“Oh Sherlock,” he said, “If you thought those were bad you really need to see this fantasy novella that one of my techs brought back from a science fiction convention!” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suppose explanations of the references must be in order. Information on the Booker prize may be found here <http://www.themanbookerprize.com/> and here <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Booker_Prize>. The Buwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is real. It is the brainchild of a professor in the English Department of San Jose State University in California and has its own website: [http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/ ](http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/%20). The rules are simple and entries are due (sort of) by April 15 (really June 30) if you feel inclined. Word to the wise, don’t read the winners while drinking anything. It may be hazardous to your keyboard. The fantasy novella referenced is The Eye of Argon (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eye_of_Argon>). It is often used as a game at conventions where people attempt to read it aloud with all mistakes as written. The idea is to see how far someone can get without giggling. Its good fun regardless of whether you are drinking gin or juice. Links to rules for staging a competitive reading and to the text itself can be found in the Wikipedia article.


	6. Why Did You Bring Me Here?

James Bond was like a fine wine. He became more complex and subtle with age. That was why, despite my familiarity with him and his habits, I was unable to deduce his intent when he stuck his head into my office.

“Do you think the minions can get along without you for a week?” he asked with no preamble.

I thought for a moment. Nothing critical was on deck at the moment. 

“I suppose.”

“Good,” he replied. “I squared it with M. You are officially off for a week. We’re leaving in 20.”

I gathered my wits about me enough to sputter before he disappeared, “Should I pack anything specific?”

“Just your personal electronics” he said as he let the door swing shut behind him.

When I exited my office 15 minutes later he was standing talking to R and holding a medium sized briefcase. 

Shirley looked over at me and said “You’re all set boss. I’ll keep the branch from getting into too much trouble while you are gone!”

I wasn’t too sure about that. Some of the R&D folks were dangerous without decent supervision. Something must have shown on my face or R just knew the way I thought.

“Don’t worry,” she said “I can always lock R&D out of the labs and make them write proposals and catch up on their reports.” 

Well that was one way to deal with things. I noticed that as she had been talking Bond had been carefully maneuvering me so that I was almost out the door. This would prove a good test to see how R and the branch reacted without my direct oversight. I decided that any last minute instructions would be superfluous and insulting so I simply turned and proceeded James out the door.

Shortly we were headed north at speed in Bond’s Aston Martin. Before we got too far along I made sure that there was a do not stop order on the plates. It just wouldn’t do to spoil my appreciation of James’ driving prowess by having to deal with the local constabulary.

I expected a high end hotel in Glasgow but instead we ended up in a cozy bed and breakfast. Given the direction we took in the morning I thought we were headed to Skyfall but once again my deductions proved incorrect. We didn’t end up at the estate but swapped out the Aston for a slightly battered Land Rover in Glencoe and were soon traveling on something that might have at one time in the distant past been a road. At that point I gave up attempting to determine our destination and proceeded to enjoy the scenery.

Less than half an hour of jolting over the countryside later we pulled up at an ancient fieldstone cottage. Judging from its appearance it had been there since at least the 1600’s and had undergone a variety of renovations over the years. When we entered the foyer I was pleased to note electrical outlets and lighting in addition to period typical accoutrements.

James chuckled at my surprise and said, “Wind and solar to a battery bank in the basement. There is also a small gen set in the barn. You won’t lack power for your toys Q.”

I turned to face him then. I was still confused about what this was all about and nothing he’d said or done on the trip thus far had given me any clue. I supposed I would just have to take the direct approach.

“Why did you bring me here?”

He didn’t reply but instead led me into the main sitting room and indicated I should sit. I did. James busied himself with lighting a fire and once it had caught sat down opposite me. Finally he spoke.

“This has been mine for years. The Kincaids have kept it up for me. I suppose you could call it the oldest of my safe houses in more ways than one.” He paused to look at me for a long moment. “From time to time I come here to think.” 

My original question still hung there between us unanswered. I gave him a look.

He rested his elbows on his knees and stared into the fire. “You know I never really expected to get this far. I…” his voice trailed off.

It dawned on me then exactly why he had brought me along. I was there as an anchor; a tangible reminder that there were other options available once his time as a 00 was complete. 

“Ah” I said, sparing him the effort to articulate something he clearly wasn’t yet able to express. 

I stood and moved to him then, setting myself down on the floor next to his chair. He started a bit when I leaned against his leg. I doubt he’d been aware until that moment that I had moved. He relaxed a bit and his hand migrated to rest on my head, fingers combing through my hair. All was quiet as we watched the fire together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This particular snippet occurs just before Chapter 3. James is a month or two shy of 45, the mandatory retirement age for the 00 program.


	7. I Keep Having The Same Dream

“Talk to me Q.” James Bond’s voice was quiet over the coms.

Q knew that this was not an invitation to engage in the snarky flirtatious banter for which the two of them had become famous or, as some in MI6 would assert, infamous. No that was reserved for high stress situations. This was a request for another type of conversation entirely. One that few even in Q-branch even knew occurred. Q put the com feed into private mode for his ears only.

“Any preference as to subject 007?”

“Not really.”

Bond was currently on top of a building in Prague with a sniper rifle waiting for his target to leave a party. Every agent dealt with waiting differently. James often would prefer to talk. Q thought momentarily. Bond would need a subject engaging enough to help keep him alert but not engrossing to the point of losing focus. Luckily James was such a consummate professional that Q knew he could engage his agent in a discussion of anything from weapons design to Greek philosophy without jeopardizing the mission.

Before he could suggest a subject Bond’s voice broke into his musings. “You weren’t around during my set up. You playing around with something interesting in the labs?”

“Mandatory psychological eval,” Q grumbled.

“Oh, how did they get you to do that? You are usually better than I am about avoiding those.”

“M caught me at the end of a meeting and gave a direct order. Moneypenny delivered me.”

“So you had a fun afternoon with word associations,” Bond’s tone was sarcastic.

“Actually not. They’ve got a new twist now, recurring dreams.”

“They’ve always asked agents about nightmares. Welcome to the club.”

“No, this is different. They wanted to know about those dreams that seem to keep coming up over and over but do not seem to be connected to any specific event like most nightmares are.”

“Interesting,” Bond sounded curious. “Any tips?”

“Not really. I tend to get recurring themes as opposed to the same dream; mostly along the lines of watching and listening to events or even predicting them.”

“That’s hardly a surprise considering.”

“They said I was working too much and recommended time off.”

“You hacked the report as soon as it was written and removed the time off recommendation didn’t you.”

“Damn straight.”

“I wonder what they’ll say about mine. I keep having the same dream. I’ve never been able to figure out what triggers it but I’ve had it on and off since I first enlisted in the Navy.”

Q was a bit surprised at the turn of the conversation. Bond usually wasn’t so open about personal information especially over the coms. He was clearly expecting that Q would edit this discussion completely out of the mission logs. Q was flattered by the unspoken declaration of trust.

“Really?”

“In it I’m a Knight.”

“In shining armor?” Q had to ask.

“Rather battered armor actually. It’s a battlefield and I’ve just taken a sword out of a dead man’s hand. I know the sword is important and that I need to preserve and protect it until he comes to claim it again.”

“He?”

“Unspecified. Dreams don’t have to make sense Q.”

“Interesting.”

“What’s even stranger is that my subconscious seems to have a fine eye for detail. The armor is period typical for 5th century Britain but the sword seems to be somewhat older.”

“Must have been rather vivid to allow you to remember and identify things that specifically.”

“Not really. I was fascinated with medieval history when I was in school. I suspect that I’m imposing that knowledge over what I remember. In fact the whole thing is probably a rehash of some famous battle that impressed me.”

“Well I think you are correct, the shrinks are going to have a field day with that one. Probably tell you that you have an overly developed since of duty or something.”

 Bond didn’t respond immediately. His breathing pattern had changed. Q switched the coms back to the main speakers. “Site Rep?”

“Target’s car has been brought around. Bodyguard is talking to the valet. Shouldn’t be long now.”

“Acknowledged.” Q rechecked that he had all the potential exit routes at his fingertips as well as the preliminary hacks in place just in case he needed to disrupt local communications.

It was less than a minute later when Bond said, “I have visual” followed shortly thereafter by the sound of a single shot. “Target down.” Bond remarked echoing what Q had seen on one of the surveillance cameras.

“Ok 007 let’s get you out of there hopefully with both you and your equipment in one piece this time,” said Q as he proceeded to go to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes gentle readers you did just glimpse a bit of a plot bunny there.


	8. I Always Knew That It Would Come Back to Haunt Me

Despite what you may have heard from others in the agency I'm just a normal bloke. Sure I can make numbers dance in a spreadsheet and produce a justification statement for almost any catastrophe you can think of but so can most of us accounting types. No as far as I'm concerned my only extraordinary talent is an ability to connect bits of extraneous data from disparate sources and use it to predict events. An American economist has even coined a term for it, Freakonomics. It isn't always correct but it makes me relatively successful in the office pools.

The latest pool, for example, I didn't even bother to participate. We'd been hearing rumors of an administrative reorganization for at least a month. Given the nature of the rumors, who was spreading them, the toner consumption for the 5th floor copier and the entrees served in the cafeteria it was absolutely clear to me when the announcement, if any, would occur. Thus I was not at all surprised when all of the _administrative types_ were herded into the large meeting hall to find not only our respective department heads but also Ms. Moneypenny and M himself waiting for us.

The reorganization was nowhere near as extensive as the rumors had hinted. It was simply an attempt to expedite communication by imbedding various members of the administrative services into certain of the operational departments. The poor sods who were selected would have the unenviable task of explaining the administrative realities of government to those who were charged with the more active tasks of the intelligence service. Of course the fact that the heads of said operational departments, with the exception of Medical, were not present was not lost on any of us in the room. The initial idea had most likely been much more extensive and had flown like a lead balloon. Personally I suspected a generous application of blackmail on the part of the executive branch to get even this limited experiment off the ground.

When we were dismissed I discovered that Jean, my boss, was walking beside me on the way back to our digs in Accounting. "Fred," she said as we walked in the door, "I need to talk to you."

I followed her into her office where she closed the door. This was not good. It looked like I was going to be one of the damned souls that were going to be assigned out. Given the fact that I had been dealing with procurements for Medical lately I suspected that I'd soon be somewhere down on the 3rd floor in a hastily converted supply cupboard that smelled of industrial disinfectant. Her next words disabused me of that notion.

"I really hate to do this to you Fred," she sighed, "but you are going to be assigned to Q branch."

"What! Why? Wouldn't Peter be better? He's been dealing with their numbers for ages."

She gave me a look. "When we were hashing this out you were recommended by both 006 and Moneypenny for the task. Then Q himself requested you and that sealed it."

I was thinking fast at that point why would a 00 and Moneypenny both…Oh. It was the 00Q pool that I'd won a few months ago. I always knew that it would come back to haunt me.

Even though the change wasn't due to take effect until the next week the fact that Q had personally suggested that I was acceptable drove me down into the tunnels several hours later to do some reconnaissance of my own. I arrived just in time to observe the end of what seemed to be an epic rant by Q to a slightly singed 007 about the proper use of expensive high tech equipment.

"But Q," Bond protested "What does the cost of a phone have to do with the price of eggs in China when what I happen to need is something to jam a door to avoid being perforated by overzealous security personnel wielding machine guns?"

With an opening like that I found I just couldn't resist. "Actually 007 the price of eggs in China is highly variable and dependent upon a variety of factors including but not limited to toilet paper imports by certain high level party officials which could prove very useful information if you needed an appropriate bribe."

The most dangerous of the 00's had turned as I spoke and was now glaring at me. I ignored it and continued. "It might also be useful to understand that there's been an executive order from Whitehall regarding domestic sourcing for certain telecommunications equipment the net result of which might be that the next mobile provided by Q-Branch will prove to be entirely inadequate as a doorstop!"

Bond looked over at Q who nodded in agreement with my last statement. This caused 007 to sigh in exasperation, turn on his heel and stalk out of the branch without saying another word. Q for his part masterfully maintained a straight face until Bond had cleared the doorway before breaking out a smile.

"Welcome to Q-Branch Fred." Q said as if nothing momentous had just occurred. "Let's get you set up and I think your first assignment will be to find the loopholes in that new directive."

I really should learn to keep my head down, my mouth shut and refrain from participating in the office betting pools.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was having trouble with this prompt until Fred walked in and handed my Muse a spreadsheet showing why it would be inefficient to assign him to Q-Branch.


	9. How Did They Get The Windows So Dirty?

Q looked up from his book as his burner mobile buzzed on the table. He got up and retrieved it glancing at the number before he answered.

“Yes?” Even though it was a secure line Q didn’t want to jeopardize the exercise by using names.

“Your secondary location has been compromised,” Bond said cheerfully.

Q grabbed his tablet and checked. “Interesting. None of my bread crumbs have been disturbed.” He switched to a different screen “No activity at the location yet. Care to tell me what happened?”

“Your brother happened.” Bond still sounded amused.

“Oh?”

“Agent A19 it seems is turning into something of a human intelligence specialist.”

“Ann recruited Sherlock to find me?” Q was shocked enough by the possibility to let a name slip.

“Nothing quite so obvious. She managed to ferret out your friendship with Dr. Watson by asking around HQ. She then arranged to _bump into him_ at lunch. He happened to be dining with your brother who quickly deduced the existence of _Operation Find the Quartermaster_. He then casually mentioned that she might remember that agencies other than ours happen to maintain safe houses with suitable accoutrements for your peace of mind and comfort.”

“I suppose it will be less than 24 hours then,” Q mused. “Depending, of course, on how long it takes her to work through the booby traps and whether she gets Robert to back trace my technology link to the secondary site or uses the hard clues I left there.”

“It may be a little longer. Apparently Sherlock shook her up quite thoroughly by deducing most of her personal information within less than a minute of meeting her. She’d tried to use the _flirtatious accountant_ number on Watson and your brother took offense.”

Bond was clearly trying not to laugh. There must have been some rather choice bits in whatever Sherlock had said.

“And you know this how?”

“John gave me a briefing when he got back from lunch.”

Q had to smile himself. John Watson’s descriptions of Sherlock on a deductive rant were always highly entertaining. He’d need to pull the surveillance tapes and watch it when he got back to the office.

“Well, I guess that means I’ll need to go dark as soon as I notify MI5 that they are going to have company.”

“I’ll see you in 48, unless someone finds you sooner,” Bond replied and rang off.

Q quickly sent an E-Mail to his MI5 counterpart who was coordinating the concurrent exercise _Protect the Asset_ then logged off and powered down his tablet. He stood and walked over to the window looking out while he disassembled the mobile. The view was nothing special, just a rundown suburban London neighborhood. The house he was in looked just as disreputable as its neighbors. Q idly wondered just how did they get the windows so dirty. Was it something they applied or just the naturally occurring accumulated grime? Q decided it wasn’t really something worth investigating so he walked back over resettled himself in his chair. With any luck he’d be able to finish reading his book before Ms. Renyolds, aka Agent A19, came calling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are confused please continue directly to Chapter 10. Things should make a lot more sense.


	10. She Didn't Think They'd Mowed In Weeks

Ann Renyolds, currently designated A19, lay flat on the rooftop covertly observing a row of rather disheveled looking houses on Armitage Street. The windows were all dirty and she didn’t think they’d mowed in weeks. Clearly garden maintenance was not a high priority item in this particular patch of suburbia. As she waited for her handler Robert to get back to her with information she reviewed the series of events that had landed her on this particular rooftop.

It was a spot of bad luck that she had been on training rotation when Bond had aged out of the 00 program. Management in its infinite wisdom had him alternating between Q-Branch and acting as a part time trainer. Sparring sessions with the ex-00 were brutal but it was the training exercises that really drove everyone spare. The first one had been to attempt to tail Bond through the streets of London. That had been a major cock up. He’d managed to ditch all of them in the first fifteen minutes. She’d only managed to track him down with Robert’s extensive assistance.

This one was even worse. It had been dubbed _Find the Quartermaster_ and the mission objective was simple; locate where the head of Q-Branch was hidden within 72 hours and return him to MI6 without being _killed_. Since it was Bond who had set the exercise many of her colleagues were looking for safe houses, hotels and other properties Bond had used in the past on the theory that he’d stashed the Quartermaster somewhere familiar. Ann hadn’t been enamored of that strategy. She knew what Robert said about his boss and she’d even seen him toss something to one of his minions who had softly made a request to a coworker all while barely slowing down his coding. No, Q was a force in his own right and any operation bearing his title would have his fingerprints all over it. There was no way he’d be simply hidden somewhere obvious.

Ann had decided to see if she could work the human intelligence angle. Q was known to associate with Moneypenny and Tanner. A30 had overheard a bit of conversation between the two but she thought it was suspicious that the discussions had occurred just when A30 could hear it. Of course it was common knowledge that Q and Bond were cohabitating. Bond was just too smart to lead anyone to Q so A26 was clearly wasting her time shadowing the man when he left the building. Never the less even the best could slip up and there had to be some line of communication between the two of them which was why she had enlisted Robert to keep an eye on Bond via the CCTV cameras. The only other known Q associate was Dr. Watson in medical so Ann had set her sights on him to see if he knew anything.

She still wasn’t sure whether approaching the doctor at lunch had been a good or bad idea. He’d been lunching with his, if she had read the dynamic between the two men correctly, platonic life partner Sherlock Holmes. She’d hardly managed a sentence when Mr. Holmes had deduced her life story, determined her current motivation and then quietly reminded her that MI6 was not the only agency with safe houses. Unfortunately A15 had been sitting nearby and had overheard the last comment. It hadn’t taken him long to find several likely safe houses belonging to MI5.

She had resigned herself to not being successful when Robert had contacted her. He’d observed Bond in a corner of the lobby talking on something that did not look like an MI6 issued mobile. In addition, that particular corner had previously been a blind spot in the CCTV coverage until the camera development team had used it to mount one of their micro-mini prototypes. Robert was unable to crack the encryption but he had managed to trace the signal down to a block area in suburban London which was where she was now encamped waiting for either a siting or for Robert to determine which of several properties was officially a safe house. Personally she thought it was Number 25. Better safe than sorry though, she’d wait for the intel.

Her earpiece came live. They’d kept the line closed when not actively communicating to avoid her classmates potentially triangulating on her signal. “Looks like Number 29 belongs to the Yard,” Robert said without preface.

“What about 25?”

“It’s vacant. Been tied up in a probate matter for several years.”

“Hmm. What’s the connectivity like?”

There was the sound of typing then “Basic on 29, 25 doesn’t have anything at all but 27 was retrofitted with a T1 line two years ago.”

“Can you see your boss hiding out anywhere without decent internet?”

“Nope.”

“Neither can I. I’m going into 27.”

“Good luck agent,” Robert said quietly.

Twenty minutes and two disarmed booby traps later Ann was creeping up the basement stairs into Number 25 Armitage Street. She’d found Number 27 to be lived in but currently unoccupied. No computer equipment in sight. Upon investigation of the basement she discovered that all the houses on this side of the street appeared to have connecting basements and the tunnel areas between each were trapped with nonlethal measures. The internet line went toward 25 so that was the direction she had chosen.

Cautiously Ann cracked the door and looked into a kitchen that was much nicer than the outside of the house indicated. Seeing no one she entered and made it halfway across the room when she was brought up short by the sound of the electric kettle clicking off followed by Q’s familiar voice saying “While you are in the kitchen A19 could you please make the tea?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If it wasn't obvious this takes place an hour or two after Chapter 9.


	11. That’s What Happens When Two People Like That Meet

Q stood in the doorway of Angelo’s private dining room waiting for his dinner guests. He didn’t have to wait long. A pretty raven haired Goth who could only be Ms. Abagail Sciuto came in followed by a clean cut, square jawed man who was obviously watching her back.

“McGee,” Q called and waived to catch the man’s attention.

The two NCIS agents walked over and Q waived them into the back room.

“Nice to finally meet you in person … Mr. Quinn.” It was clear from Tim McGee’s hesitation that he knew it was alias.

“Call me Q for short this evening.” Q replied. “It’s what I go by when I’m in a relatively secure environment.”

“Oohh!” Abby breathed and looked at McGee, “You didn’t tell me your friend was a real life spy!” 

“Not quite,” Q laughed. “I’m mostly viewed as a glorified gadget provider!”

“Right,” Abby sounded skeptical and looked likely to continue but she was forestalled by the entrance through the front door of the restaurant of Q’s half-brother.

He swept in the door with a dramatic flourish of his trademark coat then turned to hold open the door for Dr. Watson who was limping along behind. His leg injury seemed to be healing well Q noted. He was using a cane now instead of the crutches he’d been sporting a week ago. 

Sherlock spotted him and made his way over. As he got closer his eyes widened as he recognized Ms. Sciuto. From Ms. Sciuto’s reaction it was clear that she recognized Sherlock too.

“You!” She sputtered. “Where do you get off telling me that my calculations were incorrect. If I had done it your way the blood spatter should have been on the ceiling!”

“But you forgot to take into account the open window and the victim’s heart medication!” Sherlock shot back. “And by the way the ash from mentholated cigarettes is easily distinguishable from the normal version of the same product!”

Q took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, “I didn’t think it would start so quickly.”

John laughed, “Well that’s what happens when two people like that meet.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen this before. She’ll argue like a fiend for a bit then somehow she’ll find some common ground and he’ll be her best buddy in an hour or so.” Tim chimed in.

Q looked at both of them and smiled. “In the meantime gentlemen shall we order appetizers?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I tried to write a snippet about Q's dinner party and this happened.


	12. Really Had to Borrow a Cup of Sugar

Sarah watched from her seat on the hard straight backed chair in the corner as the room fell suddenly silent. A relatively tall man dressed in an impeccable suit and carrying an umbrella paused in the doorway. He did not look pleased as he glanced around eyes finally coming to rest on her. He crossed the room, offered her a hand to help her out of the chair and said, “On behalf of the British Government I must offer you a sincere apology Ms. Hauptmann. As I understand it you really had to borrow a cup of sugar.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tried to make this 3 sentences but it didn’t work. 6 will have to do. This takes place soon after Chapters 9 and 10. It looks like the joint training exercise titled Find/Protect the Quartermaster is now officially FUBAR.


	13. The Water Had Stopped

Lisa raised her head from her blackberry and stared at the executive washroom door. The water had stopped over a minute earlier but her employer had not yet appeared. That was an anomaly and anomalies in connection with Mycroft Holmes did not bode well for anyone. Before she could decide what, if anything, was the correct response the door opened and her employer appeared. She surreptitiously looked him over to see if she could determine the cause of the delay. Wardrobe adjustment? She didn’t see anything obvious at first glance then it hit her. His tie was looser than it had been; the knot cinched tighter to give more room at the collar without being obvious. She took a closer look as she traveled down the hall in his wake. Shorter stride length, careful placement of feet, tightness in the shoulders, cuffs slightly damp….Shit.

She sent a quick e-mail to the office staff telling them to clear the official calendar for a minimum of 36 hours. Lisa then took a quick scan at the personal items remaining. Nothing there that could not be postponed however, she paused at one particular entry: Lunch, J. Watson @ Diogenes Club. The time was less than an hour hence. She took another glance at her boss. That appointment, she thought, might just solve two problems at once.

******

Dr. Watson looked a bit better than when Lisa had last seen him. He was still limping and using the cane but he did not look quite so shell shocked. It was clear that Sherlock’s alleged suicide was weighing heavily upon him however he did seem to be more alert and oriented. Good, she thought as she held the door into the Stranger’s Room at the Diogenes club for him. Hopefully with a minimal amount of prodding he’d notice that something was wrong with his host today.

She had ensured the reserved table was out of direct line of sight of the door just so she could escort Dr. Watson. She had also seated her boss such that only a slightly out of the way route would keep him from noticing their approach if he was not paying attention.

“Dr. Watson, sir” she said as she reached Mycroft’s elbow.

He started slightly at her words then slowly rose to great his guest. “John” was all he said as he gestured to the seat opposite.

“Mycroft,” Dr. Watson acknowledged and sat.

Lisa took that as her cue to back away and take a seat at a nearby table that was far enough away so that she would not overhear a low voiced conversation but strategically placed so she was within Dr. Watson’s line of sight. He glanced at her as she sat and she intentionally let him see the look of concern she shot at her boss.

As the lunch went on Lisa watched the two participants intently but unobtrusively. Conversation was polite but minimal. Both men picked at their food. Each appeared to be eating as a method to encourage the other to also eat. The main course had just been delivered to the table when she spotted what she’d been hoping for; Watson had clicked into Doctor mode.

The next few minutes were entertaining in a strange sort of way if she hadn’t been so concerned. To outside eyes Dr. Watson appeared to be attempting to engage his host in conversation. He also appeared to be slightly uncoordinated with his cutlery, clinking it several times on his plate. Finally he placed his plate to the side leaned forward on his elbows and asked Mycroft a question point blank. She saw the wince the question invoked as well as the grudging response.

Things got moving pretty quickly after that. Dr. Watson utilized his army experience to requisition supplies and assistance. Orders were given to Lisa and club staff alike. A short while later he had Mycroft medicated and ensconced in a darkened private room. She had a set of instructions for the next 24 to 48 hours and, wonder of wonders, Watson had even elicited a solemn promise from Mycroft about taking appropriate steps when he was stricken in the future.

During her stint in the intelligence establishment Lisa had been threatened a number of times by a variety of rather intimidating people. During her service with Mycroft Holmes that number had easily doubled. None of those experiences had prepared her, however, for what happened just after she and Dr. Watson left Mycroft sleeping off the effects of his migraine medication.

A hand gripped her elbow and Dr. Watson’s voice said softly “Don’t you ever do that again.”

He had clearly spotted her manipulation and was angry about it. She turned to look at him and what she saw made her realize that Mycroft was right, John Watson was one of the most dangerous men she was ever likely to meet. She stared, shocked by the realization.

“And in the future,” he continued “Do not let it get that far along. If he can’t care for himself and won’t let you care for him, call me. I don’t care what time it is, I don’t care where you are, call and I’ll come.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one occurs several months after Sherlock “jumped” off the top of St. Bart’s but after James Bond has delivered the thumb drive which has the transcript and video from Sherlock and Moriarty’s conversation to John (see Brothers Three, Chapters 7-8).


	14. The Old Tree Had Fallen

Looking out the window over the grounds I realized that, had I been gifted in literary endeavors, the havoc last night’s storm had wreaked would be an apt metaphor for the current state of my family. The old tree had fallen. The very tree that had witnessed my initial introduction to the inner-workings of power when I eaves dropped on my parent’s discussions of politics, national and international affairs. It had also later sheltered me in my quest for knowledge whilst my brothers played pirate in its branches. Now it lay prone, uprooted and disheveled, an anathema to the normally ordered workings of the estate. In that it was quite similar to the current status of the two would be buccaneers who had climbed it long ago. The eldest of the two once youthful miscreants now resided in a discrete medical facility recovering from his recent flirtation with illicit substances. The younger was hiding in a wardrobe busily dismantling his identity electronically and starting anew after a relationship went bad in more ways than one. Mummy, of course, was abroad tending to the interests of Queen and country. That left me as the one to watch, worry and pick up the pieces scattered all over the lawn. In some respects Father had been correct, caring was not an advantage. However, Mummy’s corollary to that statement was also true. Even a disadvantage should not stop you from doing what was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little angst from Mycroft for you. This occurs quite a few years before Brothers 3. Mycroft is 28 (barely), Sherlock is 18 and Quentin is 16. Olivia Mansfield Holmes is working as either chief of staff or chief of operations at MI6 but is not yet M. The reasons for Quentin’s actions are referenced in QEF Chapter 5 and 50R Chapter 15.


	15. Maybe He'll Come

Oh Gods she hurt. The bruises were bad, the precisely placed cuts on her body were worse but it was lying on the cold concrete floor where she’d been unceremoniously dumped that would most likely kill her. The cold had seeped into her bones and she was barely shivering anymore, a clear sign that hypothermia had set in. It wouldn’t be long now. As deaths go this wasn’t really that bad; there wouldn’t be another round of interrogation. Given the loss of feeling in her extremities she was relatively sure she wouldn’t last the night. When she’d been working for MI6 she had expected something like this. Working as a personal assistant cum bodyguard to a minor official in Her Majesty’s service; not so much. She let out a half laugh at the irony.

Her charge’s best protection was his anonymity: the spider in the center of the web, the man behind the curtain, no one to know exactly what he did or how powerful he actually was. She let out another half-laugh, half-sob. Well that was most likely blown all to hell now. They wouldn’t have known to grab her and her blackberry if they didn’t know about him.

Maybe he’ll come. No, more likely not. His detachment was legendary. Estranged younger brother, a half sibling who had disappeared never to be heard from again, no wife, no kids, no known lovers, all in all no leverage. The Ice Man as one particularly deranged psychopath had called him. It was logical, rational; two qualities that he prized above all others. He would locate the leak and deal with those responsible first. She would be avenged but not rescued. 

A full body shudder took her then. The pain in its wake left her panting. Wasn’t it customary at times like this to think of regrets? She didn’t have many. She had none at all for switching jobs, likewise none for her performance over the last few days. Her captors had not got much of anything for the effort they’d put into her interrogation. Not even her real name, just her current nom-de-guerre and Anthea one of her well backed aliases. She’d even managed to trigger the emergency self-destruct sequence on her mobile injuring, if not taking out, at least one of her interrogators. No the only regret she had at present was that he’d never know. The smartest most insightful and observant man in the country and he’d never deduced it. Now, of course, she wouldn’t be able to tell him. She just hoped that he might figure it out from her actions and the few sentimental keepsakes she’d collected over the years. Oh well.

A faint pop echoed somewhere in the building above her. It almost sounded like a shot. Pop. Pop. Two more in close succession; one shot to incapacitate the second to kill. Thud, no shot, man down; keep one alive for questioning no doubt. Running feet somewhere above her then another pop; A man’s voice crying out in pain, suddenly choked off; faintly a voice yelling “Clear!” followed by another answering “Clear!” it was a rescue then.

Bang! Someone had shot the lock off the door to her prison. She didn’t have the strength or the inclination to roll over and look at who was entering. 

“Bloody hell!” said a male voice that she felt she should recognize but didn’t.

“I’ve got this. Shift your ass and cover the door,” a tenor voice ordered. 

Gentle hands were on her then; taking her pulse, assessing her injuries.

“We are going to need medical evac as fast as you can possibly get it!” the tenor voice said authoritatively. 

What followed was a stream of medical jargon that really ought to make a bit of sense since she’d had advanced combat medic training a little less than a year ago. Must be the hypothermia she thought vaguely.

There were more hurried footsteps and another familiar voice, baritone this time, spoke. “We need to move now. There’s another group heading in.”

“I don’t like it,” said the tenor, “but it’s better than going up with the building when the sniper hits the explosive charge.”

She felt someone else kneel down beside her.

“I’ll take her,” said the baritone “you two are much better shots than I’ll ever be and you can cover our retreat.” 

She was gathered up in someone’s arms. She couldn’t help but whimper slightly as her injuries were jostled as he got to his feet. 

“Don’t die on me Lisa,” the baritone voice ordered. “My brother would be most displeased if I lost his favorite P.A.”

She recognized the voice then and cracked her eyes open to verify. Yes, it was the wrong bloody Holmes she confirmed as her consciousness slipped away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the confused Lisa is my name for Mycroft's PA known in the fandom as Anthea. In my head canon she changes names every two weeks and has multiple identities. This story line continues in Chapter 16.


	16. Its Saturday

The world was shaking slightly to a rhythmic beat; a thump, thump, thump that didn’t vary in tone or tempo. Not music then Lisa thought muzzily. Where was she? The last thing she clearly recalled was the pain and the questions. The next bit was jumbled; more pain, cold, the sounds of shots, several voices and a keen sense of disappointment. Well she certainly wasn’t cold now. She shifted slightly. The pain was muted now and the effort it took to think meant morphine. Ah, she’d been rescued then. 

She was wrapped in blankets and laying on something padded. She could barely feel the pressure of straps presumably to keep her from rolling off if the helicopter had to take evasive maneuvers. An automated blood pressure cuff on her left arm went off startling her into moving. The pain spiked. Suddenly she could feel a hand on her wrist, taking a pulse. 

“Lisa,” a tenor voice asked. “Are you with me?” 

Lisa? The last name she’d given up was Anthea. Oh yeah, rescued. She attempted to reply but she couldn’t hear if anything came out. That was no good. She tried to open her eyes. Well at least that worked. She was looking up at John Watson. He was dressed in all black and wearing a set of ear protectors and microphone with a curled cord that presumably plugged into a communication system in what she now recognized as a helicopter. There was a stethoscope around his neck and he was currently looking between her and something on the bulkhead behind her head. When he saw her eyes open he grinned and reached over her head and flipped down a microphone. She realized then that there were a set of similar headphones on her head. Well that explained why she hadn’t been able to hear much of anything. 

“OK” he switched something on his headphones “We are on a private channel now. Is there anything else I need to know about other than the obvious bruises and lacerations?”

It took her a moment to figure out what he was asking and why he’d done so privately. “No” she managed. 

She appreciated the courtesy even though it didn’t really matter. She was a professional. She’d been worked over by a professional. There’d been no need for sexual coercion at least not in the early stages. 

Watson gave her a long look. “Good,” he said firmly flipping the switch on his headphones then hers.

“Damage?” she asked. She couldn’t really assess her own condition in this state.

“Nothing too serious. You’ve got mild hypothermia, dehydration and a concussion. There’s a couple of burns and a bunch of the lacerations are going to need stitches. Given your vitals I don’t suspect anything internal at this point. I’m bringing your body temperature up and taking care of the dehydration,” he nodded at what looked like a cooler bag with a cord and an IV tube coming out of it. “Everything else can wait till we are on the ground.” He gave her a strange look and added “In fact some people with these injuries and less sense would discharge themselves as soon as they were stitched up.” He didn’t appear to be talking only to her.

As she suspected John’s remark resulted in a chuckle followed by “Just until someone got creative with prescribing medication.” 

“If you followed instructions I wouldn’t have to.” John replied just as good naturedly.

John leaned back just then and she could see who else was in the bay of the helicopter. Sherlock Holmes looked a bit strange out of his normal suit, in black fatigues and body armor. He had a smear of blood, presumably hers, on one of his cheeks. He inclined his head and gave her one of those Holmesian looks that could mean anything from everything is alright to you’ve done well. She was really too tired to determine which one applied in this situation. 

The blond weather beaten man sitting next to him was a bit of a surprise though.

“6?” she croaked at the square jawed agent.

“Someone called in a favor.” James Bond oozed charm at her.

She ignored it. He looked sort of fuzzy. Her head was spinning so she tried to focus on John but he was going blurry round the edges too. She could see him frown at something behind her head then he reached up, fiddled with his headset controls, and started talking rapidly. As her vision started tunneling out she thought she heard someone talking about airspace restrictions and a familiar voice saying “Ignore them.”

*******

When she swam up to consciousness again it was to the smells and sounds of a medical establishment. The bed was comfortable and the sheets felt like they had an obscenely high thread count. That was distinctly not normal. She opened her eyes to a dimly lit hospital room that didn’t have a window. It was a secure facility then; which explained the sheets and the bed. She was surprised, however, by the figure in the chair. Mycroft Holmes was dressed in wrinkled, slightly grubby black fatigues. He had his hand on a Walther and appeared to be asleep. She shifted slightly to get a better look at this marvel and he opened his eyes.

“You are in MI6 medical. It’s Saturday. You should be fully recovered in less than six weeks since they got the internal bleeding stopped.” He cocked his head at her and smiled his real smile at her. “The only thing I need to know immediately is whether you’d like to recover at the town house or in Sussex?”

With her years of experience as his P.A. Lisa quickly parsed through all of the subtext that Mycroft had not spoken aloud and came to a stunning conclusion, not only did he know her feelings but those feelings were reciprocated. 

“Sussex” was all she had to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm not quite sure where this occurs in the timeline. It's clearly after 50 Reasons Chapters 9 and 46. As always comments feed my muse and typo spotting, Brit picks, and constructive criticism are welcome.


	17. Didn't Tell Him About the Footprints

As he made tea John listened with half an ear to Sherlock ranting about the stupidity of the newest MET DI. He was currently expounding in great detail that it was obvious the murder was the ex-lover rather than the husband due to the shredded note, the placement of the flowers in the foyer, the victims allergies as well as the fact that the murderer must have been over 6 foot judging from the footprints. The husband, of course, was only 5 foot 10 as evidenced by the inseam of the trousers in the closet. 

Sherlock paused for a moment and John placed a cup of tea on the table in front of him while asking, “Footprints?”

“Yes, there were clear footprints in the garden next door where he’d nicked…” Sherlock stopped talking, grabbed his mobile and started texting furiously. 

John stared. Sherlock rarely stopped mid-deduction and almost never mid-rant. Sherlock looked up upon hitting send and noticed John’s stare.

“I may have neglected to tell DI Smith about the footprints,” was all he said by way of explanation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My muse decided to have lunch with John Watson today and this is the result.


	18. Looking For A Red Teacup

SMS Transmission Intercept Test: S. Holmes & G. Lestrade

Holmes: _Arrest sister. SH_

Lestrade: _What?? Victim died of anaphylaxis._

Holmes: _Murder weapon = teacup, red. SH_

Lestrade: _So I’m looking for a red teacup?_

Holmes: _It will be in the flat. SH_

(30 minute gap)

Lestrade: _Still looking. Where would you hide a red teacup?_

Holmes: _With the other red teacups, obviously. SH_

Lestrade: _Now I have 8 red teacups…which one?_

Holmes: _Fill all with hot water and screen results then charge sister with murder of husband too. SH_

00Q/00Q/00Q/00Q/00Q

E-Mail  
To: S. Walters  
From: Q  
Subject: SMS Intercept Test

I see you fixed the bug.

E-Mail  
To: Q  
From S. Walters  
Subject: Re: SMS Intercept Test

May have another one, the mobiles were with 10 feet of each other at the time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once my muse was finished with her lunch date she then promptly handed me this. BTW: S. Walters is Spider one of the hackers/programmers in Q branch. He’s an OC who has been mentioned in the series previously.


	19. Something Started Scratching at the Door

Despite the cliché it was really a dark and stormy night complete with wind and icy rain. Sherlock had gone to bed in his inevitable post-case crash. Three days with minimal sleep coupled with the weather had drained him enough to force him to rest when the adrenaline rush let off. As for me the weather was causing havoc with my shoulder and I had decided that I was going to need to dig out the heavy duty painkillers when there was a clearly audible thump from downstairs. Pain forgotten I grabbed the fireplace poker and crept down the stairs to investigate. 

Nothing appeared to be amiss. Mrs. Hudson was out of town visiting her sister so her flat was quiet. The front door was secure as was the door to the garden. When I turned to retreat back upstairs to B something started scratching at the door.

I wasn’t quite sure what I was expecting. One of Sherlock’s homeless network in need of medical attention was a possibility. Heaven knows it had happened before with a half-dead informant in the back garden. I cautiously opened the door only to find a muddy, bedraggled bull dog puppy shivering on the back stoop. I knelt down to be less imposing and attempted to coax the little creature to come inside. It stared at me wide-eyed and shivering for a moment before suddenly launching itself at me. 

It took a bit of wrangling but I managed to get both the puppy and myself clean, dry, fed and settled down in front of the fire. During the process I had discovered that the puppy was male and judging from his condition had only been on his own for a couple of days. He was an amicable little fellow, not objecting a bit to being bathed and examined for injuries as well as eating the leftover broccoli beef from Sherlock and my supper without complaint. I hoped that there would be no adverse reactions from the meal but it was the only thing in the flat that was in any way suitable to feed a hungry puppy. For my part I had managed to make tea and take a half dose of medication to stave off the worst of the inflammation. I had fully planned to move both myself and the puppy up to my room as soon as both of us were fully warm. Unfortunately the combination of the medication, the fire and the earlier exertions caught up with me and I fell asleep in my chair. 

I was awoken by Sherlock’s voice asking “John, why is my riding crop being masticated by a bulldog?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies gentle readers, Metamorphosis has been taking up most of my writing time recently so this has been languishing a bit. Rest assured I've not abandoned this 'verse in the slightest. There are plenty of plot bunnies still hopping around waiting to be written. For some strange reason my muse dropped this particular bunny on me during my commute this morning so I'll pass it on for your enjoyment.


	20. When Are You Going to Decide?

As I came out of the kitchen in 221B I had to smile. It was quite a sight to see Quentin, the technological guru of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service, on the floor of the sitting room playing with a puppy using nothing more complicated than one of his brother’s socks.

Quentin looked up at me and asked “When are you going to decide if you are keeping him?”

“I don’t know if we can keep him,” I replied. “Technically he’s evidence at least until the DNA testing comes back.”

“Ah. So this little guy is tied up in that dog accreditation forging ring you and Sherlock busted up last weekend?”

“Yep. He showed up late Friday night. From the residue of mud he left on my clothes, the rug and the towel Sherlock figured out where he’d come from,” I explained.

What I didn’t say was that we’d merely been attempting to find his owners, assuming that he’d been lost. What we’d uncovered had been much worse. A dog breeding ring where they were attempting to create puppies that could pass for purebreds with forged accreditation papers to match. The non-breed standard puppies of each litter were normally killed while the acceptable ones were sold for top prices. It never would have come to light but for the fact that one of the flunkies assigned to get rid of the puppies had taken to randomly dumping them in greater London rather than killing them. It had been a total fluke that this particular puppy had ended up on the doorstep of the one man in London who could find a location solely on the basis of collected mud and debris.

“Lucky for him then,” Quentin said releasing his hold on the sock and watching the puppy fall all over itself attempting to wrestle the garment into submission.

I was about to reply when Sherlock burst into the room. I hadn’t seen him since I’d left for my locum shift in the morning and his appearance surprised me. He was wearing a tatty long sleeved flannel shirt and jeans and smelled faintly of chemicals. His hair was a riot and he had creases on his face that were reminiscent of how my squad had looked after gas mask training. 

“The mold has been eradicated!” he announced then added, “The painters will be here tomorrow and the new refrigerator will be delivered on Thursday.”

Quentin and I just stared at him. The puppy gave up on the sock and walked over to investigate Sherlock’s leg. He took a deep sniff, looked disgusted then sneezed.

“What?” was all I managed to get out before he started in again.

“I’ve rented C from Mrs. Hudson. On Friday you can help me move all my lab equipment downstairs.”

“Why?”

“I can’t have Gladstone poisoning himself with some of my experiments and besides I really don’t want to deal with dog hair in Petri dishes.”

My brain seemed to be in a vaper lock. Looking at Quentin he was in a similar situation. I ended up asking the only thing that had really made an impact, “You named the dog Gladstone?”

“It was Mycroft’s fault,” Sherlock replied.

“You let Mycroft call the dog Gladstone?” Quentin asked.

“Why would Mycroft suggest naming him after a Victorian era medical bag?” was my question.

Sherlock smirked at us, “Mycroft showed up with a case this morning,” he explained. “He mentioned in passing that the puppy’s expression reminded him of a portrait of William Gladstone a PM during the reign of Queen Victoria. After I turned him down and the puppy had managed to ruin his shoes I decided that Gladstone was an appropriate name to commemorate the occasion.”

I didn’t quite know what to say. Quentin burst out laughing as he stood up and scooped the puppy, now christened Gladstone, up off the floor.

“You,” he said to the puppy, “are going to fit in just fine around here. You have a famous namesake, an awesome back story, and the makings of not one but two legends to explain your name.” Quentin gave the puppy another cuddle before setting him back down on the floor where he promptly ran and hid behind Sherlock. Quentin looked at Sherlock and I “I suppose since Mycroft provided the name it’s going to be up to me to ensure that you can keep him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rest assured gentle readers that this is not the last you will see of Gladstone. I promise not to echo canon and only mention him twice.


	21. I'll Make a List

The mission, officially named _Find/Protect the Asset_ , was completely FUBAR; the Quartermaster was in the wind; and Eve Moneypenny found herself trapped in M’s office as two of the most powerful men in Britain’s intelligence community faced off over a mahogany desk.

“So,” Mycroft Holmes snarled into Gareth Mallory’s face, “Just how many people knew that the asset involved in this training exercise was the Quartermaster himself?”

Eve took the rhetorical question as an opportunity to escape saying, “I’ll make a list,” as she exited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another 3 sentence fiction. BTW as with most MI6 operations there is an "official" name and then there is what the agents involved call it. Find/Protect the Asset is the official name.


	22. She Couldn't Have Heard That Right

Lisa came awake to the sound of a door closing. From the sounds and smells she could tell she was still in MI6 medical so she didn't bother to open her eyes. They were way too heavy to open anyway. It was safe here, protected, she didn’t need to worry about it. The voice that addressed the other occupant of the room however surprised her.

"Mycroft," John Watson's voice was soft but authoritative, "you've been going for over 36 hours now it's time to let someone else take over."

She didn't understand her employer's reply but she could tell by the tone that he was objecting.

"You at least need to clean up, change and get some food into you," Watson pointed out reasonably.

There was another almost inaudible grumbling reply. Oh boy, she thought, he really was running on the last of his not quite inconceivable stamina. It would only be a few hours more before he'd completely crash.

"Bond can take over for a little bit. He's a better shot than you are anyway," John was still attempting reason as if that had a hope in hell of working.

"Not with a rifle he isn’t," came the slightly louder grumble.

"Like you could shoot straight right now anyway,” was Watson’s immediate retort.

“Done it in worse conditions than these,” Mycroft muttered.

She couldn’t have heard that right. Her boss, Mycroft Holmes, the man who was allergic to fieldwork of any sort, implied that he could shoot a rifle better than the premier 00 of MI6 and had done so previously in a wide variety of situations and circumstances. She’d seen him in field gear earlier but she hadn’t really imagined that he’d been an active part of the operation. She’d have to reevaluate. If this were true in all probability he’d been the sniper referred to during her rescue that had covered their exit from the complex.

“Come on, up you get.” Watson clearly wasn’t taking _no_ for an answer.

She cracked an eye open just in time to see Watson march her boss out of the room. The door didn’t even have a chance to swing shut behind them when James Bond, dressed in his normal sartorial splendor walked in. He must have been standing just outside the room to enter so quickly. She wondered what, if anything, he’d heard of the conversation. He noted her watching the door and smiled.

“One of these days I’d like to see exactly how good a shot he really is,” he commented. “I doubt he’ll be able to best me with a handgun and I’ll bet I’m still better with a rifle.”

Lisa closed her eyes and snorted. No Mr. Bond, she thought, I won’t take that bet against Mycroft Holmes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one takes place some hours after Chapter 16. Lisa is my head canon name for Anthea.


	23. The Light on the Wall Made Him Nervous

Bond strode through the corridors of the facility as if he owned them. He had learned long ago that one of the best ways to infiltrate an R&D location was to walk in with a badge at a busy time of day and act as if you belonged. It was only a matter of minutes before he arrived at the unmarked door which should, if the plans Q had accessed were correct, should lead him to the secret server room. A minor pause to allow a man in a lab coat to get out of line of sight and he slipped inside.

As expected he found himself in what looked like a utility corridor complete with conduits running along one wall and the ceiling. Lights mounted intermittently along the walls provided illumination and about halfway down the right hand wall was the door that concealed his prize.

Bond paused and looked closely at the segment of hallway before the door. A couple of the ceiling lights appeared to be out of alignment. The circle of light on the wall made him nervous. Given the upkeep level he’d seen elsewhere in the building this was a major anomaly. The mounting assembly for the misaligned light closest to him was slightly different from the others in the hall, slightly bulkier. He edged forward slowly to get a better look.

Interesting. The light shining on the wall ensured that the floor in that area was completely shadowed. Bond pulled out his mobile and used the flashlight app to take a look. Someone was seriously paranoid, he thought to himself as he saw what had been concealed. Half the corridor floor consisted of a pressure plate. Avoid the beam of light and step on the plate. Avoid the plate and break the beam of light. He looked around. There had to be a method to disable whatever trap was triggered by the setup. Ah there was a junction box on the wall that had a slightly shiny edge from being opened frequently.

Bond flicked the cover open to reveal a keypad. Rats. Due to the nature of the facility mobile reception was spotty at best and this deep in the building it was practically nonexistent. On the way in he’d heard plenty of the employees gripe about it. This particular area was even worse from the look of it the whole area was a bloody Faraday cage. Even Q-branch’s mobiles that linked into the agent’s earpieces couldn’t get through the amount of shielding this area had. He was effectively on his own.

He looked down the hall again. Using the flashlight app he could see a similar setup on the other side of the door to the secret server room. The area in front of the server room door was clear however. This would be tricky.

Ten minutes later after having plugged the micro USB drive into a handy port Bond’s earpiece came to life.

“There you are 007,” Q’s calm tones came in clearly. “If you’ll hold for a minute while I establish a permanent back door I’ll see about getting you out of there safely.”

“That would be appreciated Q. Contortions while free climbing on a wall is not something I really want to repeat if I don’t have to do so.”

Q didn’t respond immediately but Bond could hear the clicking of computer keys faintly in the background. “Done. You can remove the USB drive now. Now there should be a keypad,” Q informed him. “152745 is the override code. I’ll erase it from the system log once you are clear.”

Bond looked around. “Sorry Q, no keypad in here. There’s one outside on the wall disguised as a junction box though.”

"Hmmm." There was more clicking. "Oh that's interesting!" Q sounded intrigued. "You just walk out the door and punch the code into the keypad within 30 seconds."

"Or what happens?"

"It's actually a cleaver use of fire suppression equipment. If you trigger the warning system then open the server room door the room is locked down and flooded with Halon gas 90 seconds after the door is closed. If you open the server room door first then trigger the warning system the hallway is locked down and flooded with gas. Of course there's an alarm too but I think that's superfluous since anyone caught in the area would be dead without supplemental oxygen."

"Wonderful. What if the code doesn't work?"

"I've got control of the equipment and the fire doors right now. I can give you enough time to get out. Unfortunately the alarm is a completely separate system that doesn't touch anything else. If it gets triggered I can't stop it." Q sounded apologetic as if it was his fault that the building designers were either cheap or overly paranoid.

"Don't worry about it Q. I'll deal with it," Bond said as he exited the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops...this one has story arc all over it. Stay tuned for more somewhere down the line.


	24. There Must Be At Least 20

“You didn’t toss that chipped ID card did you 007?” Q’s exasperated tone came through clearly. “There must be at least 20 of them out looking for you and I can’t block all of the receivers!”

“Watch and learn Q,” Bond muttered under his breath placing his hand on the side of the small water taxi as if to steady himself as he exited leaving behind the aforementioned ID card affixed to the boat with a piece of half chewed salt water taffy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another 3 sentence fiction! Of course this occurs soon after Chapter 23.


	25. He's Been That Way All Night

The aide with the tea tray paused at the open door to Mycroft Holmes’ office to speak to the blond agent on duty.

“Where do I put this?” he asked softly.

“You’ve read the memo,” the agent replied, “within line of sight and arms reach but off to the side of the work area.”

“Got it,” the aide went and did so returning shortly to the doorway.

“That’s kind of creepy” he whispered referring to his boss who was sitting in his chair at the desk hands steepled in front of his face with his eyes closed.

“When I came on duty at 1800,” the agent replied, “he was in a meeting with some folks from Scotland Yard. After they left he reviewed a few files, made a phone call then assumed that position. He’s been that way all night.”

“I didn’t believe the memo when I read it but I guess it was true. By the way I’m Vickers if you need anything. I’m on this duty for the next four hours.”

“Bond. I’ll be alternating 12’s with another guard for the duration of this incident.”

Vickers took another glance at his boss just in time to register that Mr. Holmes’ mobile which was sitting on his desk had vibrated. Holmes picked it up and read what had to be a text. He placed the mobile in his breast pocket then poured a cup of tea. Vickers glanced at Bond who was now leaning nonchalantly against the wall. Bond shrugged.

He was just turning away when Mr. Holmes suddenly asked, “Who made the tea?”

“Ellingham, sir” Vickers replied completely confused.

Mr. Holmes put down the tea cup without drinking and got up from his desk. He strode through the doorway collecting Bond with a jerk of his chin. Vickers, for lack of anything else to do trailed on in his wake. They ended up in the outer office where most of the underlings including Vickers had desks. Mr. Holmes marched up to Ellingham’s desk and came to an abrupt stop.

“Sir?” Ellingham asked nervously as he stood.

He was presumably unsettled from suddenly being on the receiving end of Mr. Holmes’ intense gaze. Vickers always felt that he was standing in just his pants with all his secrets strewn around him when Mr. Holmes turned that penetrating glance on him. Agent Bond did not seem to be surprised at all by Mr. Holmes’ actions. His attention appeared to be not on protecting his charge but instead he seemed to be focused completely on Ellingham.

“I see,” Mr. Holmes said his eyes not leaving Ellingham. “I will ask you once politely, where is she?”

Oh shit, Vickers suddenly understood and he realized that he needed to get between Ellingham and the door just in case his co-worker decided to take a runner. Bond had moved also; flanking Ellingham which served, with Mr. Holmes’ position, to box him in. Ellingham’s mouth dropped open clearly taken by surprise. He made a quick panicked glance around noting both Vickers’ and Bond’s positions then refocused on Mr. Holmes just in time to be slammed into the wall with Mr. Holmes arm across his throat.

“I’ll ask you again,” Mr. Holmes voice dripped ice “Where is she?”

Ellingham sputtered “I don’t know!”

“That is an unsatisfactory answer.”

Vickers noticed just then that Mr. Holmes had produced a rather wicked looking knife from somewhere and had it pressed against Ellingham’s side.

“Rest assured,” Holmes informed him in a level tone, “I know exactly what to do to make your last few hours excruciatingly uncomfortable if you don’t give me the information I seek.”

Ellingham went even paler than he already was. “No, I really don’t know,” he gasped, “but I do know all the locations they used for dead drops, everywhere they met me, I can provide descriptions, I’ve even got a recording of one of their phone calls. They threatened my family, my mother. They said I was under surveillance and they’d know if I tipped anyone in the office off.”

In response to the last statement Mr. Holmes glanced at the blond agent who simply nodded and said, “He’s on it.”

Mr. Holmes removed the knife and his arm letting Ellingham slump against the wall. “He’s all yours 007. Take him and wring him dry.”

Bond grabbed Ellingham by the arm and marched him out of the room without a word. Vickers realized that everyone in the room including himself was staring in various degrees of shock and awe at their boss. They knew that their work and their boss was important but this confirmed it in a very visceral and real way. Mr. Holmes however appeared to be oblivious to the reaction of his staff and completely unaffected by the fact that some third party had managed to get a hold on a member of his staff enough to cause a betrayal of this magnitude.

Mr. Holmes glanced around then addressed the group, “Ladies and gentlemen we appear to have had a leak and may be under surveillance. Please determine exactly what has been compromised and to what extent. Protocol 34-A will be implemented for protection of your designated significant persons. Additional information will be routed to your mobiles.” He paused and focused on Vickers, “and some more tea please,” he requested. “I suspect the tray you delivered is untainted however it is best to take reasonable precautions.” With that, Mr. Holmes turned around and walked calmly in the direction of his office.

Vickers watched him go stunned; finally understanding why the sobriquet _Ice Man_ had been applied to his superior.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one takes place before the events in Chapter 15 and after Lisa (Anthea) was kidnapped if anyone is trying to keep the timeline straight.


	26. One Of These Days I'll Learn

The news came down at 3:45 on a Friday afternoon the great embedding experiment, where members of administrative departments were stationed in various MI6 departments, was ending. The official reason given was that expected efficiency had not been achieved. I wasn’t entirely surprised. Unlike me most of my fellows had not had positive experiences but then again I had been stationed in Q-Branch.

No matter what is said about the boffins and boffinettes of Q-Branch they are eminently trainable so long as you relate whatever it is to something that they are familiar with such as video games. Once I had explained how to play with the governmental purchasing/accounting system and clearly defined the winning conditions the self-proclaimed minions took to the task with a vengeance. In less than two months they had automated scrips for generating the appropriate forms, complete with the current buzz words and phrasing, to enable them to get their preferred items rather than the cut rate knock offs that normally would be approved.

I also, in that same two months, managed to straighten out and automate most of Q’s budget process so that it complied with the current management and overarching governmental protocols. It hadn’t been an easy task.

On more than one occasion Q had exclaimed “This is not logical!” doing his best Leonard Nimoy impersonation.

Of course I would respond using an approximation of DeForest Kelley’s voice with, “I’m an accountant not a bureaucrat so don’t ask me to explain it,” before attempting to verbalize the reason behind whatever it was that had provoked the outburst.

By the time we were three months into the test period I found myself relegated to reviewing and tweaking the results of the automated processes as well as keeping up with the latest changes to the myriad of regulations on governmental purchasing, budgeting and accounting. Minutia such as: _Please note that when ordering explosives form XJ91-A needs to be submitted to Home Office Department P897 in triplicate with one copy being on green paper_ were par for the course. The unwritten part of that particular missive was that the green paper had to be pastel green, not chartreuse or bright green and it needed to be segregated from the normal copies so that it could be forwarded on to another department entirely.

The side benefit of all the training and automation was that I found I had time to indulge my passion: statistical information analysis. With the sheer amount of information coming through Q-Branch I had a plethora of data with which to play. While the heavy duty intelligence analysis was crunched by Intentions occasionally interrelationships and correlations between data sets needed to be done on the fly so to speak by the handler in charge of a mission. I found that my input in such situations was occasionally helpful and as time went on welcomed and encouraged. Handlers and agents appreciated a quick turn around when attempting to determine whether a purchase of a large number of specialized batteries indicated a penchant for certain types of amorous activities or upgrades to the alarm system on his residence. Occasionally I even gave instructions directly to an agent in the field such as the time I talked 004 through a conversation about American baseball which, as everyone knows, is heavy on the statistics.  
Since the reversion to status quo ante was set to happen on Monday I decided to get a jump on things by organizing my personal belongings in preparation for the move back to accounting. News travels fast in an organization of spies. It was quite gratifying how many of the minions came to express their sadness that I would be leaving their number shortly.

As I sorted I discovered that I had acquired number of development prototypes that needed to be returned. By 4:45 I was running around the branch putting these items back where they belonged. Of course some of those items belonged near the end of the bullpen where Q’s office was located.

Q’s door was half open and as I approached I clearly heard the man himself say “No, I refuse! I won’t do that!” There was a pause, some rapid fire typing then, “What about that?” Another pause was followed by some barely audible back and forth then finally a resigned, “I suppose that’s the best I’m going to get from you.”

I continued returning the various items although a bit slower than I had been. It was clear that Q was negotiating some deal or another over the phone. It was most likely in-house.  Judging from the conversation snippets and the typing both parties were working from a shared document. I was curious as to what all the fuss was about so I casually worked my way closer to Q’s office door.

There was a bit more unintelligible low voiced chit-chat then clearly, “Yes I understand, I’ll ask and abide by the decision.” Not more than a heartbeat later Q said just loud enough for me to hear, “Fred get in here I have a question for you.”

One of these days I’ll learn; do not attempt to spy on the head of Q branch when you happen to be physically in the branch.


	27. The Room Smelled of Wet Earth

“Come lie down and rest. You are no good to me if you are too tired to shoot straight.”

Ann stared at the Quartermaster as he sat patting the disreputable looking mattress. Q didn’t look anything at all like himself attired in jeans, ratty trainers and a grubby anorak. His hair was slicked down giving it a greasy look. The only thing the same was his glasses and the intelligent eyes behind them. Ann sighed and motioned for her superior to move over closer to the wall so that when she lay down her body and the gun would be between him and the door. Q huffed but complied with her nonverbal request.

As she made herself semi-comfortable Q spoke again, “The others will let us know if anyone comes looking.”

Ann gave him an _oh_ _really_ look over her shoulder.

“This bunch I’d trust with my life,” he replied to her look as he pulled a thin blanket over the two of them. He stilled then but she heard him add very softly, “he certainly does,” just before his breathing lengthened into sleep.

Ann took another look around the room. It was a dingy basement flat in an abandoned building. The room smelled of wet earth and unwashed bodies. It clearly had been a flop house for a while. She placed her hand on the butt of the gun hidden under the blanket and thought about how they’d managed to land in such a place.

**********

Ann had been startled when she came up out of the basement at the Quartermaster’s request for tea. She had only expected to find a clue to lead her on in the spy version of hide and seek. However, with Robert her handler’s help she had managed to skip all that and locate Q’s bolt-hole. Now that she’d won this round the task had shifted to get the Quartermaster back to MI6 without any of her compatriots or the teams from MI5 stopping her.

Ann had started toward the kettle when the Quartermaster spoke once more, “Belay that, get in here.” He was using what Robert liked to call _mission_ _voice_ so she obeyed instantly.

She found Q in the dining room looking at a surveillance feed on his laptop. “Any ideas?” he asked as soon as she’d got a look at the screen.

There was a group of five men approaching down one of the alleys with another two breaking into the basement of the house at the end of the row. They didn’t look like any of her training class and they didn’t move like MI5.

“Nope but they are all armed.”

“That rules out any of our lot or MI5,” he commented as his fingers flew over the keyboard. “Time to vacate the premises. I suspect I’ve been made.”

Q moved quickly and quietly through the house and up the stairs. He didn’t grab anything on the way even leaving his laptop where it sat running on the table. They ended up in the attic which, despite the differential in the row houses roofline were connected just as the basements had been. They came down at the end of the row where Q snagged a couple of Women’s coats, a purse and a hat from a handy cupboard.

Donning one of the coats, the hat and removing his glasses he murmured “My distance vision is atrocious so you’ll need to keep an eye out for our _friends.”_ With that he motioned her to exit the house out the front door.

They were only a block away when Ann heard unmistakable thump of an explosion.

Q grinned at her, “Someone didn’t guess my password correctly.”

Ann hadn’t quite know what to say to that so she didn’t reply.

**********

Over the next few hours Ann came to realize that the Quartermaster made a damn good field agent. They ditched the coats, acquired some other accoutrements then proceeded to toss those also. The glasses went on and off even ending up on Ann’s nose a time or two. Hair styles were changed with the application of a comb, hair bands and a little water. His mobile ended up in the back of a delivery lorry, hers got stuffed behind a seat in the tube. Her id card was wedged between two bricks in an alleyway while his wallet, minus the cash, was tossed in an industrial bin and her ear piece went floating in a plastic bag down the Thames.

The strangest thing Q did was to buy a mesh tea strainer and some plasters. He dismantled the strainer and disappeared into a loo for several minutes. Upon exiting he simply commented “Experimental subdermal tracker. If this goes on too long you’ll need to dig it out of me.”

Finally he led her through the back streets of London in a path that was clearly meant to expose any potential pursuers as well as to avoid CCTV cameras as much as possible. They had ended up raiding someone’s bolt hole judging by the stash of clothing, makeup, money, Id’s and even a firearm with ammunition. Using the tools at hand the Quartermaster hand then proceeded to turn them both into members of the ubiquitous homeless population.

They’d then wandered the streets, occasionally panhandling, until Q approached another homeless individual. A short conversation and an exchange of money later and they found themselves in the basement room.

**********

As she reviewed the events of the day Ann realized that the guidance Q had provided, even though he was by her side not on the coms, was exactly the reason why the 00’s were to a person willing to die for this man. It was also the reason a certain ex-00 would move heaven and earth to keep him safe. As she fell into a light dose Ann vowed that just like them, no one would get to her Quartermaster except over her dead body.


	28. That Bird Almost Flew Into the Window

"That bird almost flew into the window but it didn't make it and now I smell roast chicken"

"Back off 007 you are going to need to use a different approach." Q sighed then added half to himself, "Well I guess we now know where the microwave transmitters Fred found in the purchase records were used.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the second day of Christmas my muse gave to me...a fic with sentences three.


	29. There Aren't Any There

I surfaced from a rather intense bit of data diving into the vagaries of international commerce chuckling. It was amazing that something as simple as a power cell could be so hard to find in certain places like Belarus. Of course it probably had to do with potatoes...everything in the former Soviet Union tied back to potatoes in one way or another. I always thought it was akin to playing seven degrees of separation, the agricultural version.

"What's up Fred?" Spider asked.

"Did you know you can't buy batteries in Belarus right now? There aren't any there."

"So why is this important?"

"It isn't as far as I know but it it's sort of interesting isn't it?"

"Yes it is," Q's voice came from somewhere behind me. "Pass me the specifics will you Fred."

"Yes sir" was my reply. I had no idea what he was going to do with the information but whenever Q used his evil overlord tone I knew something interesting was going to happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the third day of Christmas my muse gave to me…three AAA batteries, two agents running and a fic with sentences three. Well not quite in that order but three posts in three days. I don’t know if I’ll be able make all 12 days but I’ll try.


	30. Don't Have Any Batteries

“Ok 007 leave the device in your room and let the beautiful Belarus partisan pick you up in the bar.”

“But that means the separatists will steal it and be able to disrupt communications in the entire region!”

“Don’t worry they won’t be able to do anything before you infiltrate the base to retrieve it, they don’t have any batteries and the nearest ones are in Moscow."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one occurs rather shortly after Chapter 29.


	31. So Fragile They Immediately Broke

“I’m in. Q you will be happy to know I didn’t need the C-4.”

“What do you mean 007? That vault door was three foot thick reinforced steel.”

“True but after using the liquid nitrogen the hinges were so fragile that they immediately broke.”

“Ah, the unintended consequences of cold war era construction.”


	32. On the Top Shelf

James Bond strolled across the crowded carpark toward the megastore entrance. He, like many of the other patrons was talking on his mobile.

“So, remind me again why I’m walking into a,” James paused to read the store sign, “Super-Target on the outskirts of Los Angeles two days before Christmas?”

“Because it’s the most convenient drop site for both the agent in place and your location,” Q replied calmly.

“Convenient? It looks like everyone and his brother is doing their last minute shopping,” James’ voice sounded slightly exasperated. “Now where exactly am I supposed to find this thing?”

“In the home repair section it’s on the top shelf to the right side of the hanging hardware display,” there was a clicking of keys. “Head to the back of the store then take a right. It should be just past the children’s toy section, the 10th aisle down.”

James kept the line open but didn’t bother to respond until he turned into the indicated aisle. He looked around and spotted the display containing various hooks and other hardware but directly to the right was clearly overflow from the toy section. James had never before seen such a variety of play construction equipment in quite so many eye-blinding colors before in his life.

“It seems that they’ve rearranged their stock somewhat,” he commented.

“Oh bother,” said Q followed by the sound of more keystrokes.

As he pretended to look at something on the aisle end cap and waited for Q’s instructions, James idly watched the surrounding shoppers. The only people in this particular aisle were two petite college aged females, one with blue hair, having an animated discussion regarding what color truck to purchase for a niece. They finally decided on a chartreuse green dump truck that was sitting toward the back of the top shelf. Given the size of the two females in question, he estimated that neither of them was more than 5’2”, he was curious as to how exactly they were going to retrieve it. He was just about to step forward and offer assistance when the stockier one squatted slightly lacing her hands together and the blue haired one placed her foot and was gracefully boosted enough to be able to retrieve the toy.

As the blue haired girl grabbed the toy and pulled it toward her something small, square and matt black was knocked off the shelf. With a startled squawk the blue haired student grabbed the falling object while simultaneously stepping down off her friend’s hands and handing off the toy truck.

“What’s that?” asked the stockier one.

“I don’t know. It was wedged next to the truck box and fell.”

“Where does it go? Does it have a tag so we can put it back?”

“Nope, there’s some sort of an etched bar code on it though.”

James had a sinking feeling. “Is there a bar code on the bottom of the item I’m retrieving?” he softly asked Q.

“Yes, it should have one etched on it somewhere,” Q replied. “Why do you ask?”

“Figures,” Bond muttered. “I’ll get back to you in a bit,” he added and rang off.

Meanwhile the two truck shoppers were attempting to use a mobile app to read the bar code.

“Well, that was a bust,” said one. “Whatever this is it is definitely NOT a set of size 6 fuzzy bunny slippers!”

“So what do we do with it?” the blue haired one asked. “Put it back or haul it up to customer service?”

James decided to make his move. He sauntered up to the conversing pair. “Excuse me ladies, I believe you have found just what I was looking for.” He smiled his most charming smile and held out his hand for the box.

The blue haired girl politely handed it to him commenting, “Well that solves both our problems then!”

“Thank you,” James replied as he took a close look at both of the young ladies before starting to stroll off. He took two steps then turned, making it look like a casual afterthought, and wished them a Merry Christmas while surreptitiously taking their picture with his mobile.

Less than five minutes later Bond reconnected with Q. “I assume you retrieved the tech?” was Q’s first question.

“Undamaged even,” he replied.

“Make sure it remains so 007” was Q’s predictable reply.

James didn’t bother to respond to the jibe instead he changed the subject. “That was quite a coincidence,” he remarked.

“What was?”

“The two young ladies that found your tech for me, they were the same two that had the sniper rifle, martial arts discussion on the roof the last time I was in Los Angeles.”

“What?!? The ones who were allegedly writing fan fiction?”

“Yes, I’m sending a photo.”

“I’ll put it in our database so if there is a next time you can label it enemy action then” Q replied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The two females are indeed the same characters from 50 Reasons (Q Branch Edition) Chapter 16. Also a bit of Bond trivia, the saying “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The Third time its enemy action.” is a line said by Auric Goldfinger from the movie that bears his name.


	33. Hitting it in Hopes it Would Start Working

“Good afternoon 007 just dump what’s left of your equipment in the box.” 

R pointed at the usual box sitting in its usual place on Q’s stand up workstation. What wasn’t usual was that Q was not standing at said work station ready to comment about the sorry state of said equipment. This was in some respects a tragedy because James had managed to only destroy his mobile and loosen the grip on his Walther during this particular mission. Everything else was intact and in pristine condition primarily due to the fact that he’d had to ditch his luggage early on and had not had time to extract the tech toys he’d been provided before doing so. 

James looked around the branch. The atmosphere was subdued and quiet rather than the almost electric buzz that passed for normal in the bullpen. In fact the last time Bond had seen the minions this subdued was the last time they’d lost an agent. 

“Who?” he asked R quietly.

“Not who, what,” R replied just as quietly while pointing at a jumble of electronics and broken casing sitting in the waste bin next to Q’s station.

“Beg pardon?” 

R paused and looked up from her screen. From his position James could just barely see that she was in the midst of an internet search for something. 

“We were trying to get data from this,” She held up what looked like a card a little over 5 inches square. 

“Q managed to find something that would read it but the drive crapped out part way through the transfer process. Q managed to get it working again with a bit of persuasion but only for a few minutes at a time. He took it apart and put it back together again several times but it would only work for about three minutes at a stretch and then only after you jiggled the case a few times. After a good twelve hours of this it stopped for good and Q ended up hitting it in hopes it would start working again. That was the end result.” She pointed again at the electronic detritus in the bin. “Q’s locked himself in his office to cool down and I’m attempting to find obsolete tech on the internet. To make matters worse there’s no guarantee that what we want is even on this one. There are twenty more just like it that we need to go through!”

James picked up the card that R had been waiving earlier. It was really a paper sleeve containing something that he’d not seen in quite a while; a 5 ¼” floppy disk. James grinned. 

“Is this standard or something special that Q branch came up with years ago?” he asked.

R snorted, “Bog standard circa 1978.” 

“You might want to call 006,” James suggested.

“Why?”

“Because if I remember correctly he has a bunch of stuff in a storage unit that’s about that vintage including a computer he never bothered to throw away.”

R brightened immediately, “I’ll get right on that! In the meantime 007 do you think you could extract the boffin-in-chief from his office, feed him and put him to bed before he destroys anything else around here?”

“Yes mam!” James gave R a half salute and headed off to execute a mission that, if he knew Q, was going to be just as difficult as the one he’d just finished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry you didn't get a post yesterday but I ended up in a situation that when I had internet I didn't have any time and when I had time, of course, there was no internet! No worries though...you all just get two today. Enjoy.


	34. No Way They Chose That Wallpaper

I watched as Sherlock stood in the doorway analyzing the murder scene before entering. He was humming under his breath. Judging from the tone and tempo the crime before him was at least a….

“You were right to call me,” Sherlock told Greg Lestrade, “it’s at least a six.”

“Hmph” Greg responded noncommittally.

Sherlock stepped into the room in full deductive mode, eyes darting everywhere, seeing everything. He twitched his hand gesturing in the direction of the bodies on the floor. That was my cue. I went to examine the corpses. The female had clearly been strangled and the man had been shot. If one didn’t know any better one might assume…

“Why is the freak here?” Anderson’s voice interrupted my train of thought. “It’s a simple case of murder/self-defense. He strangled her and she shot him twice in an attempt to get away!”

My eyebrows went up and I glanced a Sherlock who was looking at Anderson with disdain. Sherlock inclined his head slightly in my direction asking silently if I wanted to dissuade Anderson from his delusion. I smiled slightly in return. I had this one.

“The angle of the gunshot wound and the location of the firearm makes that unlikely,” I commented to the room at large. “Her hyoid bone is fractured in two places and the pattern of bruising indicates she was strangled by someone with much larger hands than this fellow possessed.”

“But the GSR,” Anderson sputtered.

Sherlock’s smile, the real one, flashed briefly at me. “And that doesn’t take into account that she was exclusively left handed as evidenced by the arrangement of the kitchen. If she had discharged the firearm she would have grabbed it with her dominant hand. No, she was dispatched first and the boyfriend, yes he is her boyfriend look at the laundry hamper, surprised the killer and was shot. The killer was lucky as to the positioning so he fired a second time using the corpse’s hand to pull the trigger.”

“And the locked door?” Greg Lestrade prompted.

Sherlock glanced around the flat again. Ah, that was the aspect that raised this case from boring to potentially interesting. I took a look around too seeing if I could spot anything. The only thing that caught my eye was the wallpaper which just happened to be a very similar pattern to that in 221B. There was nothing that I could see which might hint at how the perpetrator had managed to lock the entryway door without a key. The building manager had assured Greg that only the couple and the manager himself had keys. The manager had a cast iron alibi since he’d been down the street at his local, keys on his ring, when the shot had been reported.

Suddenly Sherlock made a soft ha under his breath. I was very familiar with that sound. It was the one he made when a series of deductions bore fruit. Greg heard it too and cocked his head expectantly.

“Find the interior decorator they hired. The wallpaper is new. Look at the furnishings and the way they are dressed, there is no way they chose that wallpaper themselves. It will either be the decorator or the contractor hired to do the work. They gave the decorator a copy of the key because they didn’t want to wait to let the contractor in. She didn’t get it back from him because she wanted more changes judging from the fabric swatch pinned to the curtain.”

Regardless of how many times I saw it, Sherlock in full on deductive rant was simply amazing. He continued laying out the basis for his conclusions for another minute or so, indicating various clues that were scattered about the flat as well as providing a couple of suggestions about where to search for corroborating evidence. At some point during Sherlock’s exposition I noticed that Sally Donovan was standing in the doorway looking about intently.

Sherlock eventually wound down with, “If the decorator’s boyfriend is the contractor then arrest the boyfriend.”

No sooner than Sherlock had finished I realized that…

“We really should arrest the decorator,” Sally chimed in from the doorway “I mean anyone who would recommend that color wall paper in this flat is clearly guilty of a crime!”

Sherlock gave her a dirty look and strode out with a, “Call me with something more interesting next time!” directed at Lestrade.

Several hours later Lestrade texted that they’d arrested the decorator, a bodybuilder with overly large hands for his size, whose contractor ex-boyfriend had been undercutting his business by branching out into design services. The whole scene had been a set up to frame the ex-boyfriend as he’d used the ex-boyfriend’s gloves and clothes but the client’s boyfriend had come home early before he could escape the scene. The quickness of Sherlock’s deductions had managed to save the ex since the decorator had not had time to plant the evidence. Of course it took me an hour and a half as well as letting Sherlock steal most of the fried won-tons to convince him that he’d not been upstaged by Sally Donovan.


	35. How Could He Have Gotten It So Hopelessly Wrong?

Q stared at the laptop sitting on the corner of his workstation. M was dead, Bond was broken and MI6 itself was in mourning. Mallory was doing a masterful job at damage control as well as keeping the intelligence service from spiraling into disarray. Q suspected that he was getting some covert help on the former from certain quarters of the government and that the latter was due to the able assistance of Tanner and Moneypenny. 

Q’s own position both professionally and emotionally remained tenuous. Luckily very few outside the confines of MI6 knew the full extent of his involvement in the debacle that was now labeled Skyfall. Even better, Mallory had approved and covered his misuse of resources to stash Bond along with his two definitively non-regulation and non-security cleared ad hoc support system in a safe house in Glasgow. All of which left Q copious amounts of free time to look at the laptop that had started the disastrous chain of events and wonder how he could have gotten it so hopelessly wrong. 

Hubris thy surname is Holmes, he thought, and I am not immune to the family curse. With a sigh Q pulled the laptop toward him, booted it up, and started to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of angst occurring directly after Skyfall.


	36. Ow, What Did You Do That For?

Despite the somewhat inauspicious beginning to the dinner party Tim McGee had been correct Sherlock and Abby, once they had hashed out their differences about blood spatter analysis and tobacco ash, proceeded to get along just fine. John and Tim had discovered quite a few similarities between part-time blogger and part-time novelist as well as a shared penchant for using outdated technology for their notes and first drafts. Q managed to get Tim to catch him up on the social side of several on-line games that he’d not had time to play for months and that Abby happened to be _Gothchick27_ on one of the forums he followed regularly. Angelo’s food had been superb as always so it was a satiated group that found themselves taking a short stroll back to Baker Street for a nightcap. Of course that was when they happened upon the crime scene.

Sherlock spotted Lestrade and trotted over with both John and Abby in his wake leaving Tim and Q to bring up the rear. By the time they arrived Sherlock was spouting deductions and Abby was convincing Anderson to have pictures taken of both the alley wall and the industrial bins from more than just one angle. Q nodded at Lestrade in greeting giving a slight shake of his head at the man’s raised eyebrow. Luckily Lestrade got the message that Q was just here by happenstance and that there were no national security implications involved.

Sherlock was winding down and just about to declare the whole thing a two and thus not worth anymore time when Abby called “Hey Sherlock, you really need to come and look at the inside of this dumpster lid!”

Abby had somehow managed to convince the forensic team to spray Luminol on the inside of the lid of the bin then shine a black light on it.

“Hm…arterial spray pattern,” Sherlock muttered. “It’s been marred by the bin being emptied but still unmistakable.”

Tim and John peered at the pattern then Tim looked at the wall. There was a bit of nonverbal communication and John moved two steps to the right. Sherlock looked up at the motion surprised. He frowned and then his brow cleared.

“You’ll need to look for any bodies found last week in the landfill. This was where he…”

“Statistically it will be he,” Abby chimed in, “given the angle of the spray.”

“Was killed,” Sherlock finished.

“And judging from the lack of any evidence on this wall,” Tim commented.

“The killer slit the victim’s throat, caught the body, then heaved it into the bin.” John finished up.

“Meaning that your perpetrator was at least 6’2” and quite strong” Sherlock concluded.

Q was trying not to laugh. The look on the face of Lestrade and the rest of the MET team was priceless all on the theme of _oh god there’s more than one version of freak_.

Lestrade looked directly at him then and asked in annoyance, “Anything you want to add to this?”

Q took a breath to reply when a hand hit him on the back of his head. He whirled around to find James Bond behind him.

“Ow, what did you do that for?” he asked petulantly.

“Distracted you before you got involved. Your phone is off so I was sent to fetch you,” James replied.

Q sighed half to himself, “No rest for the wicked I suppose.” He then added to all present “It’s been an enjoyable evening but duty calls and I must answer. I’ll leave you all to your investigations. Tim, Abby enjoy the conference and the rest of your stay if I don’t get back to you before you leave.” With that and a nod at Sherlock and John Q turned and fell into step beside his agent.


	37. She'd Always Wondered What She'd Find in Here

Ann Renyolds newly minted MI6 agent was doing what most baby agents did in their first posting, play glorified errand runner and tea monkey. Unlike most of her class, however, she had been one of the few assigned to HQ rather than some embassy or station in the arse end of nowhere. Ann wasn’t sure whether this was a good thing or not. On one hand such an assignment could mean that one was so hopeless that the powers-that-be didn’t want you out of eyeshot or the reverse; you were good enough that they wanted to fast track you with additional training. Regardless of the reason the net result of an HQ posting was that there was no down time. You were either running around at the beck and call of all and sundry or you were working your tail off training.

For the last few weeks Ann had been assigned to the executive office. Unlike accounting where you never stopped ferrying paperwork this particular duty station wasn’t too onerous. Surprisingly the executives were remarkably self-sufficient. Most of her duties consisted of escorting various dignitaries around the building and making food and drink runs when someone had a yen for something unavailable in the canteen. The rest of the time it was a matter of being less than three minutes away from the executive suite in an _on call_ basis. That status was a bit restrictive because she would need to drop everything she was doing and respond immediately in a state of dress suitable to retrieve important visitors but which could also allow running classified documents all the way down to the depths of Q-branch and back again without using the lifts. That meant no special projects, no intense training exercises, and nothing that couldn’t be put down at a moment’s notice. Just to stave off boredom she had taken to reading the procedural manuals and security protocols for each department in alphabetical order. She’d just started in on Q-Branch when Moneypenny paged.

“Be a dear and run this down to Q please,” Moneypenny handed her a sealed document folder complete with biometric lock. “If he’s not there don’t leave it on his workstation, wait or have it locked in his office.”

Ann was surprised. That particular turn of phrase usually meant things were going well and when things were going well Moneypenny ran her own errands.

It didn’t take long to get down to Q-branch. Unfortunately the Quartermaster was nowhere in sight. Not wanting to wait too long Ann decided to attempt to locate him. The most obvious place, not to mention the closest, was Q’s office.

The glass walls were opaque and the door was closed. Ann reached out to knock and the door slid silently open, presumably due to a motion sensor. She peered into the darkened office. No one was inside. Ann cautiously entered. She’d always wondered what she’d find in here. The office was surprisingly neat. There were a few personal items on the desk; a bookshelf with some books and other nick-knacks; a comfy looking couch complete with what looked like a handmade throw over its back; a low cabinet with an electric kettle, and a variety of mugs and equipment for making tea. Judging from the cords another cabinet held a mini-fridge. The door on the tea cabinet was ajar and Ann took a quick look to satisfy her curiosity. She felt a bit voyeuristic so Ann quickly placed the document folder on Q’s desk and turned to leave. It was a good thing as she could see through the windows Q himself was almost at the door. What to do? She grabbed up the folder again and was just in motion to put it down on Q’s desk when he entered.

To forestall any questions she blurted “The door was open sir and Ms. Moneypenny directed that it be handed to you or locked in your office.”

Q cocked his head at her but didn’t say anything.

Nervously she continued, “For future reference sir…um…how do you lock this office?”

Q still didn’t say anything but he did point at a switch on the panel next to the door. It was just like every other locking mechanism in the entire building. Just flip the switch and exit then the room would be sealed until someone with the proper clearance opened it with the proper biometrics, code or key.

Ann was glad of the dim light in the office because it meant Q couldn’t see her red face. Figuring discretion was the better part of valor she sputtered “Thank you sir” and made her escape.

As she thought back on the incident later Ann hoped she hadn’t made a hash of her career as a spy. It had, however, been quite interesting to discover that the Quartermaster stocked the same brand of Scotch as found in the 00’s break room in a bottle which was clearly labeled _Do not touch – may cause death or have other harmful effects, 007_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had a computer issue yesterday so you get 2 chapters today.


	38. Already Apologized, What More Do You Want?

“He’s already apologized, what more do you want?” James asked.

John Watson sighed and stared into his pint as if it contained the answer. “I don’t know,” he finally replied.

“From what I’ve seen of the Holmes family they tend to take ‘all’s fair in love and war’ quite seriously. If the information I have is correct your Holmes’s altercation with Mr. Moriarty and his organization could easily be classified as a war. It is also clear to me that he faked his death to protect those he cared for regardless of the cost.” 

John took a gulp of his beer. “So you are saying I was put through a year of emotional hell because Sherlock had been raised with a ‘whatever it takes to win’ mindset?”

Mentally James winced. “Not really. What I’m saying is that given his propensities I don’t think he has any gage to measure whether the cost was too high or not. To make things worse if he does think the cost is too high he certainly doesn’t have any experience in how to express that sentiment especially to you.”

John looked at James in silence for a while then finally asked, “So what do I do about it?”

James shrugged, “I know it goes against the grain, typical British ideal of manliness and all that, but tell him how you feel. He’s a genius. He’ll figure it out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another bit of angst shortly after Sherlock’s return and the surprise appearance of James Bond, relationship counselor!


	39. We Are Definitely Going to Talk About This

“Bond?” Q’s voice came in loud and clear over the earpiece.

“Hmmm,” 007 gave a noncommittal sound in response to indicate he was listening. He could have spoken but the mind numbing boredom of surveillance had set in and he just couldn’t be arsed to formulate a sentence in reply.

“The report on La Giocanda you submitted last week? Eats, shoots, and leaves? Really? I thought you were supposed to analyze weakness not critique her assassination style.”

“It’s an accurate statement either way Q,” he responded with a smile at the annoyance in his Quartermaster’s voice, “she’s a vegetarian.”

There was a long pause before Q sighed and said, “We are definitely going to talk about this,” before he signed off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well here's the last of the 12 days of Christmas...a little late. For those of you confused, a little research on the oxford comma might be in order.


	40. I Shouldn't Tell You This

Juggling the takeaway, James Bond pressed his thumb to the sensor that was masquerading as a doorbell. The door obligingly popped open.

“Hi honey, I’m home,” he caroled with a hefty dose of sarcasm.

He was answered by a loud snork followed by a fit of coughing coming from the direction of the sitting room.

Ignoring the sounds he nudged the door closed with his foot and proceeded to the kitchen to decant the soup. 

“So what did you do today?” James continued with fake cheerfulness.

That earned him a rather distinct growl followed by another fit of coughing.

Balancing two full bowls James made it into the sitting room to find Q wrapped up on the sofa, detritus of his cold all around him. His laptop was on and open sitting on the coffee table where he’d clearly placed it just moments before. James handed him the soup. 

“Here. Eat this. Moneypenny swears that Mr. Tran’s Pho has anti-viral properties!”

Q glared at him but took the soup and started to eat.

“Watson says he wouldn’t go that far but that it does make a decent decongestant,” Bond continued as he sat down to eat his own bowl.

James thought that Q looked a bit better after having consumed all the soup so he took another stab at conversation. “I thought you weren’t supposed to be working,” he said nodding at the laptop.

“I wasn’t,” Q replied. “R locked me out and the stuff medical gave me makes me too muddle headed to hack around my own protections.” 

James’ eyebrows went up at that. It must have been something rather powerful to make Q groggy given his history and family background. 

“So what were you doing then? Playing Angry Birds or something?”

Q gave him a look. “Catching up on intra-agency gossip.”

Now that was something that James could understand. The MI6 gossip was more reliable than most given the fact that the building was full of spies and analysts who were well versed in the gathering and interpretation of human intelligence. The only down side, however, was the sheer volume of information. It would be almost a full time job to keep track of it all.

“So you get anything new or interesting?” he inquired.

“I probably shouldn’t tell you this but it looks like your number is going to get reassigned shortly.”

“Oh?” James wasn’t surprised. It usually only took a week or two after a 00 was completely out of commission for the number to be reallocated. In his case the powers-that-be had been dithering for over a month after his official retirement from 00 status. “Anyone have the inside track?”

“It will be one of your advanced class of A-list agents,” Q replied while blowing his nose. “I suspect they’ll start asking for recommendations in a day or two.”

“Hmm,” James replied noncommittally.

Q continued, “Have you thought what you are going to do about the name?”

It was a legitimate question. Unlike most of the 00s the designation 007 came with the name James Bond. The name over the years had acquired its own cache in a variety of circles. Never one to waste a potential advantage MI6 had historically assigned the name to go with the number that was known to be one of the deadliest of the 00s. Upon assumption of the designation the newly minted 007 would assume the name and the relevant background documentation would be modified to match. James has always assumed that the reverse would be done upon retirement, not that any other 007’s other than him had ever made it that long.

“It will take even me a bit to get the records done,” Q unknowingly confirmed James’ assumption, “so the more lead time I have the better.” 

“I’ll keep the James,” he replied. “Considering it is part of my given name, I’ve been that longer than anything.”

“Sterling for the surname?” asked Q indicating one of James’ commonly used aliases.

James thought for a moment and decided to go all in. “Actually, if you would do me the honor, I’d like to be a Holmes for the rest of my life.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one sprang unexpectedly out of my lunch and demanded to be written immediately.


	41. That Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

“Q? Could you please come and join me in the car park?” Moneypenny’s voice on the phone sounded strained.

“Should I bring anything?”

“No, just come to your parking space” she hesitated then added “and hurry you need to see this ASAP.”

Somewhere in the protocol manual for MI6 it was ordained that all branch heads and above had designated parking, therefore Q had acquired one upon his promotion. Not that Q ever used it. Q preferred to take the tube, walk or use the car service. These days the space was most often used to park Q-branch creations of a vehicular nature that were being issued as mission equipment.

_Well that didn’t turn out the way I expected_ was his first thought upon seeing the vehicle which was occupying his parking space. It was a sliver Austin Martin DB5. It was the very same DB5 which Q had restored and gifted to James Bond less than three weeks prior. Oh yes Moneypenny was correct, this was indeed a development he needed to see.

Q slipped into deductive mode as he cautiously circled the car. Nothing damaged, nothing out of place, and it was slightly dirty. Judging from the splash pattern on the rear quarter panels it had recently been driven somewhere in the Alps. Analysis of the dirt residue in the wheel wells would confirm exactly where but Q suspected Austria.

The keys were sitting on the right rear tire. Given the way the car was parked it was the only place they could be placed by a driver wishing to avoid the CCTV cameras in the garage. Q snagged them and quickly determined that the biometric sensor was still set for his data as a priority override.

Returning to Moneypenny’s position Q held up the keys, “Shall we?”

“Do you think it’s rigged?” she asked.

Q grabbed her arm and towed her around the reinforced concrete wall that protected the lift lobby.

“Quick way to find out,” he commented as he pressed the key fob to unlock the car and was rewarded with an electronic chirp as opposed to an explosion.

Moneypenny gave him a sour look, “and how, pray tell, were you going to explain the damage if it had been trapped?”

Q didn’t bother to answer her as he approached the car again. The question was rhetorical anyway.

Q opened the passenger side door. A faint combination of aftershave and scotch along with a sweet, metallic overtone that could only be…ah yes…Q noted a set of suspicious dried smears on the leather seat. Q checked the driver’s side. It was pristine. A quick check under the bonnet, in the boot and a glance at the undercarriage reassured him that nothing untoward had been added to the car.

Q tossed Moneypenny the keys. “Move this to the vehicle lab and have R assign a team. Tell her I want this gone over with a fine tooth comb and any forensic evidence preserved; then you can report this development to M.”

“And what shall I tell him that you are doing?” Moneypenny asked.

“Attempting to locate our wayward 00,” Q replied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I’ve gone there. I’m attempting to integrate Spectre into the 2.5 Holmes Verse. I’ve tentatively put this in the timeline before 50 Reasons Ch. 1 but after Mycroft’s Migraine of Conversations Ch. 13. It puts a whole new spin on both those chapters.


	42. She Couldn't Figure it Out

Eve paused and looked up at the abandoned husk of a building that formerly housed MI6. She couldn't help but think that it was an apt metaphor for the state of the agency. James had gone off the reservation and been suspended. M had grumbled but hadn't fought the merger with MI5 or the disbanding of the 00 program. Tanner had faded into the woodwork as if he wasn't essential to the smooth running of operations. Q had meekly started overseeing the dismantling of his department; lining up jobs for all his soon to be unemployed minions. The building's destruction may have been Silva's fault but the death of the agency was the result of Mr. Maximilian Denbigh and his Nine Eyes initiative. 

It shouldn't have been so easy. Denbigh's dismantling of MI6 seemed to be as simple and inevitable as the scheduled destruction of the building at Vauxhall Cross. If the former M had survived there would have been a battle royal before the current state of affairs would have come to pass. As it was there seemed to be no one left to take up the mantel of the shadowy protector of the national interest and to care for those who put their lives on the line daily for Queen and Country.

Moneypenny looked down at the bag she was carrying. Personal effects released from the disaster that had taken M's life, Skyfall. She idly wondered how exactly the former M would have dealt with this particular situation. None of the scenarios she came up with came close to matching the current state of affairs. She just couldn't figure it out no matter how she turned it over in her mind. It just didn't make sense unless... Oh. That crafty bitch she thought fondly. 

Monneypenny smiled and turned on her heel. She had a package to deliver and a conspiracy to aid and abet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep...this 'verse now officially includes Spectre.


	43. He Asked You to Keep an Eye on This?

There was a sound in the hall. Ann grabbed the gun from beside the mattress and rolled to a standing position, perfectly placed to cover whoever opened the door. She noticed that her movement had awakened the Quartermaster who had likewise scrambled and was now standing against the wall where he’d be effectively unseen behind the door as it swung open. Now all she had to do was wait.

There was a slight tap on the door frame then the door swung open revealing a skinny, scruffy looking man carrying a rucksack by its straps. He stepped into the room and froze when he felt the barrel of the gun Ann pressed into his side.

“Bloody ‘ell,” he said quietly. “Josh said you’d come in with a girl but I didn’t expect ‘er to be one o’ your pets.” He glanced sideways at her moving only his eyes.

“Wiggins?” Q asked from behind the door.

“In the flesh spooky,” the man replied.

 _Pets? Spooky?_ Ann wondered just what the heck was going on. She looked at Q who was adjusting his glasses and peering around the door.

Once Q got a good look at the intruder he gave her the hand sign for _stand down_. She engaged the safety then stuck the gun in the waistband of the raggedy jeans she was wearing. The Quartermaster gestured again, at the man this time. The lanky gentleman complied by stepping fully into the room and closing the door.

“Did he send you Billy?” Q asked quietly as soon as the door was shut.

The man looked a bit embarrassed scuffed his feet then finally replied, “Uh, not exactly. I sort of deduced it ‘ya know.”

Q sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose under his glasses, “I suppose you’d better start at the beginning and tell me everything then.”

“Right. I’d been running errands for ‘is Nibbs when he texts me. ‘E says ‘e needs me to do somewhat and to meet ‘im at ‘is place pronto. When I got there I gave ‘im what I’d managed to get done ‘afore ‘e texted. He said ‘e couldn’t talk much ‘cause ‘e was on his way to Bart’s to help identify some bodies that ‘ad been blown up in a row ‘ouse yesterday. ‘E said ‘e’d already been to the crime scene and the set up ‘ad his brother’s fingerprints, so to speak, all over it. ‘E then asked me to keep track of this,” Billy hefted the rucksack, “and that I needed to keep it so it would be available when it was needed.”

“So he asked you to keep an eye on this, did he?” Q asked.

Ann could see the Quartermaster was thinking furiously working something out in his head.

“Yep.”

“But that doesn’t explain why you came looking for me, how you found me and what’s in the rucksack that is so important.”

Billy shuffled a little again, “It was like body language, shirt cuffs, and pauses you know. Oh, and the fact that ‘e never refers to the Gov’ment in anything less than derogatory terms. That’s ‘ow I knew you was running around loose so to speak. I figured you might of raided one of his bolt holes so I looked there first. I stock ‘em so it was easy to determine what was missing. From that I hypothesized that you would go to ground with the network. A few discrete questions, a bit of quid, and here I am.”

“Shit.” Q exhaled clearly concerned at how easily they’d been found.

“Don’t worry,” Billy was quick to reassure him, “They only told ‘cause it was me. Anyone else other than his Nibs would have got the run around.”

Ann noticed that the longer Wiggins talked the more his accent slipped becoming less cockney/chav and more South London. She was also beginning to get a decent idea of what was going on. The cache they had raided clearly belonged to Q’s brother. The brother had somehow figured out Q’s involvement with the row house explosion, determined that Q was on the run and had sent this Wiggins person to assist. That, of course, led to more questions such as _Who exactly was this brother that had access to crime scenes and was helping identify bodies?_

“Oh, and the rucksack’s got a decent first aid kit, a couple of sandwiches, a thermos of tea, and the Doctor’s week old laptop,” Billy continued.

“And what did the Doctor say about all this?” Q asked.

“He wasn’t there but I’m sure he knew about it otherwise neither the first aid kit nor the tea would have been in there. His Nibs said that the Doctor was working on call down near Vauxhall and wouldn’t even miss it.”

Q snorted, shaking his head slightly at that.

Wiggins kept talking, “Anyhow since he told me to be available if needed, I guess I’m at your disposal for the duration.”

Q smiled suddenly, “I’ll take you up on that. First I need somewhere to hide, preferably with a high speed internet connection I can patch into.”

“I know just the place,” Billy answered back.

All of a sudden the pieces fell into place. Doctor, Vauxhall, brother, crime scenes, morgue, and multiple bolt holes filled with stuff that could be used as disguises; _Holy Shit!_ Ann thought to herself while trying to keep a surprised look off her face, _the Quartermaster is a Holmes!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, back again to the "find/protect the asset" story arc.


	44. It's Not a Jet, It's a Helicopter

“I’m in the server room,” James bond muttered quietly into his throat mic. “Where do you want the micro USB drive placed?”

“Any open port will do 007,” Q’s voice was calm and collected.

“Done. Do you want me to stick around and remove it when it’s completed downloading?”

“No, no need to. I’m going to slag the entire system when I get done.”

Judging from the background noise Q was typing rapidly.

“Roger. I’ll contact you again when I get into the hanger, 007 out.”

It was less than ten minutes of work to avoid the security guards and slip into the hanger containing the aerial prototype. James gazed at the equipment in disbelief then activated his communication gear.

“Q? We have a small problem.”

“Hmmmm,” Q sounded a bit distracted. He presumably was still gutting the servers for any and all relevant information.

“It’s not a jet; it’s a helicopter.”

“You can fly helicopters Bond so what’s the problem?”

“It’s quarter scale Q; the bloody thing is a remotely controlled drone.”

“Oh! Now isn’t that interesting.”

James realized that he had Q’s entire attention now.

“Any ideas?”

“Probably not a good idea to use their control room,” Q muttered. “There are schematics for a hand held remote in the server. Look around and see if you see something that looks like an oversized video game controller.”

James glanced about, “Don’t see anything here. Good thing too. I’m absolutely pants at flying remote controlled aircraft without actually seeing things from the aircraft’s point of view.”

“You are admitting that there’s something you can’t do well 007? You’re slipping. You must be getting old,” Q teased.

James didn’t respond to the jibe, “I should be able to destroy it if we can’t get it out.”

“I think that will not be necessary 007, I just found the frequency and the satellite uplink information.” Q’s voice went quiet as he partially muted the mic, “George - run and get that kid, Robert, out of the mail room. Regina – go get an appropriate game controller out of room 9 and 3/4.” Q’s voice snapped back into normal volume “007, make sure that the drone is ready to go then stand by to open the hanger doors.”

“One of the kids from the mail room Q?” Bond asked as he took the tie downs off the drone and made sure all its systems were on.

“Yep,” Q replied. “He’s an absolute whiz with remote controlled helicopters. I saw him flying one from the Riverwalk on his lunch break the other day.”

“Poaching from other departments again?” Bond moved to the hanger door controls, “You know the head of accounting is still mad at you.”

“Uh, huh,” Q acknowledged. He sounded distracted once more.

“You know everything is going to go to hell in a handbasket the minute I open these doors. They are wired straight into an old fashioned alarm system. No computer connection. Probably goes straight to some sort of bell on the outside of the building. Doesn’t look like I can dismantle it from here without setting it off,” Bond commented.

“I could cut the power,” Q offered then paused. When he started up again James could hear the smile in his voice, “No, let’s let it go. It will be a nice additional distraction. While Robert steals the Helicopter you can run off with the very nicely appointed chase plane. It’s parked on the tarmac about 100 yards out and slightly to the right of the hanger door as you exit.”

“Roger,” Bond acknowledged.

Just then the drone helicopter engine started to cycle up.

O.K. 007,” Q went back to being all business. “Prepare to open the door on my mark.”

James took ahold of the counterweighted line that would roll up the hanger door.  The helicopter cycled up its blades turning faster and faster until it was hovering just above the floor.

“Mark.”

Everything seemed to happen all at once.  James pulled on the line, the door went up and a klaxon started to make an ear splitting whoop-whoop-whoop.  The door wasn’t even halfway open when the helicopter drone shot out into the night, its skids barely 6 inches off the concrete floor.  Bond dived out after it in a controlled roll designed to make him a difficult target.  Surprisingly there didn’t seem to be anyone around.  James rolled onto his feet and took off running.  The plane was exactly where Q had told him.  He didn’t break stride as he pulled the chock block from under the nose wheel then jumped for the ladder.  From there it was simple to pop the canopy, hop into the pilot’s seat and start her up.

“Where is everyone Q?” he asked as he taxied toward the runway.

“Most of them are fighting the fire that broke out in the server room.  Although there are at least 5 heading to investigate the alarm.  I suggest you get off the ground before some bright boy remembers that there’s a case of RPG’s in the complex.” 

James maneuvered the plane onto the runway and started his takeoff.  He was just about to bring the nose off the ground when a streak of fire passed not 10 feet above the top of his canopy and ended up going right through the open hanger door.  The resultant explosion was quite something.  The only question in James’ mind was whether the source was friend or foe.  That question was answered almost as soon as he thought it by Q’s amused voice.

“Nevermind 007, Robert just figured out where the RPG’s were stored.”

Bond had to chuckle a bit to himself as he turned the plane toward home.  It looked like Q had acquired himself another minion.


	45. I Said the 34th Floor

“Bond, I said the 34th floor.”

“Sorry Q, lift lobby was covered by a goon with an AK47 so I’m heading to the roof to see if I can repurpose some firefighting or window washing equipment.”

“007 you are not going to try that stunt from Mission Impossible are you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another 3 sentence fiction.


	46. Why Did Your Phone Act That Way?

It says quite a lot about my life when I find nothing strange about examining a dead body in a posh living room while my genius flat mate prowls about like some large feline intent on prey only it could see. Glancing up at him I could tell that if Sherlock had been equipped as a cat his ears would have been pricked up and forward and his tail would have been straight up with only the very tip twitching. He was making what I called his “deduction noises;” a series of grunts and hums under his breath so quiet that they were almost inaudible. He caught my eye and tipped his head slightly. That was my cue.

“Anaphylaxis,” I said shortly. “We’ll need her medical records to know exactly what substance was involved. Whatever it was, it hit fast enough that she didn’t have time to use this.” I held up the epi-pen I’d found in the victim’s pocket.

“Hmph” Sherlock grunted at me then asked, “and if she was sedated?”

“Depends on the type sedative and the dosage; a slow onset would be less likely to cause her to wake up, a fast one could kill before she was able to. A sedative would most likely have been ingested. I’ve not found any signs of an injection.”

“There’s plenty of stuff in the loo,” Greg Lestrade’s voice commented. “Most of it seems to belong to the missing husband.”

Sherlock turned about in place scanning the room. He stopped suddenly, knelt, pulled out his magnifying glass and examined the coffee table closely for a minute before standing and walking over to a built in shelf with glass doors containing china.

“Hah!” he breathed and I knew he’d solved at least part of the mystery. He opened his mouth presumably to astound me with his deduction when his mobile chimed twice indicating a pair of incoming texts.

Sherlock pulled his mobile out and looked at the screen. His brow furrowed slightly as if he was puzzled by something then it cleared. I was just about to ask what was up when he said “Lestrade, I require your assistance.”

Now that was strange. Sherlock admitting that he needed help with something. Lestrade thought so too because he appeared in the bathroom door looking concerned. Sherlock at this point was busily texting. He sent the text and Lestrade’s mobile chimed once.

Greg pulled out his mobile looked down at then up at Sherlock, “What?!?”

Sherlock made a gesture toward Greg’s mobile clearly indicating that he was to reply in the same manner. Greg looked at me and complied. Moments later Sherlock’s mobile chimed twice. Sherlock and Greg texted back and forth several times then Greg started directing his team to search the flat for a red teacup.

It was about a half hour later that Greg stomped up to Sherlock clearly annoyed. His team had come up empty in their search. Before Greg could say anything Sherlock waived his mobile at him. Greg grimaced then pulled out his mobile and another round of texting ensued this time ending with Sherlock and Greg in front of the glass doored shelf.

Greg directed the forensics team to dust the shelf for prints then bag all the red teacups. Sherlock glanced in my direction as he headed toward the door. I followed.

“Wait a minute,” Greg grumbled. “You going to tell me what this,” he waived his mobile, “was all about?”

“Nope,” Sherlock popped the terminal p for emphasis as he exited the room.

“I’ll need your statement before we get the toxicology reports back!” Greg half shouted after him. He looked at me clearly exasperated.

I gave him a nod, acknowledging that I’d at least attempt to get an explanation from Sherlock for his strange behavior and left.

I caught up to Sherlock on the pavement. He’d waited for me. I was a little surprised when he didn’t immediately hail a cab but instead turned and ambled down the street.

“So why did your phone act that way?” I asked as I fell into step beside him.

“I just won a bet,” he informed me in a somewhat smug tone.

“About what? With whom?”

“My brother. He thought his minions could intercept my text messages without my noticing.” He grinned at me. “Now I’ll just have to see whether they are smart enough to figure out that they’ve lost.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is, of course, related to events detailed in [50 Reasons, Chapter 40](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1058690/chapters/4586655) and is the other side of [Chapter 18, Conversations from Q-Branch](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2804096/chapters/10085615).


	47. It Should Pop Right Out

“I’m in the server room.”

“There should be a router in one of the racks.”

“A what?”

“A rack with lots of wires and lights behind a glass door.”

“Got it.”

“Take a look at the cabling and see if any of the other racks are isolated completely from the router cabinet.”

“Found it.”

“If my intel is correct then the third server from the top should be the one we are looking for. You’ll need to grab the hard drive. It should pop right out of the front.”

“Nope.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s no indication that anything is supposed eject from the front of any of the machines in this rack.”

“Damn…they must have put the older servers on the secure network when they upgraded.”

“There are a couple of latches, I should be able to pull the whole thing out.”

“Do it and grab the hard disk. If anyone is working on that particular drive they’ll notice so you may have company.”

There was a grunt over the coms then, “It’s stuck.” There were some more noises followed by the sudden rapport of a silenced weapon.

“Don’t tell me that you shot the server 007.”

“Nope, just the security guard. I have your disk so guide me out of here Q.”


	48. She Couldn't Bear to Read the E-Mail

Ann swallowed the paracetamol dry and wondered if it was going to have any effect at all on her hangover. It was her own damn fault for accepting the offer of a celebratory drink in honor of completing the advanced training rotation from James bloody Bond. Her only consolation was the fact that most of her fellow trainees were most likely feeling even worse. She at least had been able to walk without assistance when the Quartermaster and several of his minions had appeared to ferry them all to their respective abodes. Given the state of some of her fellow trainees she expected that there might well be an incriminating photograph or two in the custody of Q-branch this morning. 

After a shower and some coffee Ann felt copacetic enough to log in and see if the new assignments were out. It was bound to be interesting. Office rumor had it that Bond’s old number, 007, was going to be reassigned and there were some rather prestigious overseas postings with vacancies. Of course there were also plenty of assignments in back arse of nowhere. Just who would get what was the source of major speculation and, she suspected, at least one betting pool.

Ann watched as her E-mail loaded from the MI6 server. As she had expected there it was, an e-mail clearly labeled “Report for Assignment.” It was almost a code. Where you were ordered to report would generally tell you what type of assignment was next. Ann moved the cursor over the heading but suddenly she just couldn’t bear to read the e-mail. Instead she picked up her mobile and hit speed dial.

“Lo, Ann.” Robert sounded too awake given the fact that he’d been delivering drunken agents home in the wee hours of the morning.

“Morning,” Ann replied softly so as not to reawaken her headache, “You at work?”

Robert merely hummed an affirmative noise.

“Could you do me a favor and read my assignment reporting e-mail. I need to know if it’s good or bad news so I know what to have on hand when I open the thing.”

“So you are telling me the elite spy is afraid to read her e-mail?” Robert teased.

“No, I’m asking my Q-Branch contact for technical advice in a requisitions matter,” she retorted back.

“O.K.” there was some typing then Robert swore.

“That bad huh?” Ann asked.

“Sorry,” Robert apologized “It’s not bad per se. Do you want me to tell you?”

“Shoot.”

“You have a meeting with M at zero-900 on Monday and I think Fred has won the office pool again!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You saw this one coming gentle readers, didn't you?


	49. We'll Cause an Accident

“Amazing.”

I don’t think I’ll ever tire of hearing John’s spontaneous outbursts when I explain my deductive reasoning.

“This one is definitely getting posted on the blog.”

I also don’t think I’ll ever understand his compulsion to document our cases or his choices in which ones he considers worthy of a full write up.

“I’ll just have to come up with a suitable title.”

This case for example; it would have been a four but for the discovery of the secret passage and the involvement of a flock of geese.

“ _The Purloined Periapt_?”

“It was loose gemstones John. A periapt is an item worn as a charm.”

“ _Stolen Sapphire_? _Grabbed Gemstones_?”

“While your desire for alliteration is noted why don’t you name it after the stone that precipitated our involvement?”

“ _The Blue Garnet_?”

I really don’t know why I humor him in this manner, “Carbuncle John. You can teach your readers another obscure word.”

“Brilliant! _The Blue Carbuncle_ it is.”

He grinned at me. Oh yes, sentiment. It makes John happy. I looked directly at him and smiled back. Anomalous movement in my peripheral vision. Shift in relation to John to get a clearer view.

Say aloud, “Well that’s settled then,” and continue walking.

We are being tailed. There’s one, two behind us; switching off to avoid notice. Probably at least one maybe two ahead. Yes, only one, there he is. Don’t recognize them. They don’t move like Mycroft’s or MI6. A car? No a cab showing out of service. It’s a set up for a grab. Me? John? Both? They are closing in, getting ready. Armed, that raises the stakes. Side glance at John. He’s aware, ready. He knows my mannerisms better that anyone else. There’s something to be said for a long standing working relationship; I very rarely have to yell _Vatican Cameos_ anymore. Cock my head and grin at him focusing my eyes on the alleyway ahead. He gives a slow deliberate blink back, message received. Step, Step, Step, Run!

Dart around the corner with John at my heels. Mentally map out next three turns and take them, John’s matching my pace. Blast they are still with us. Not as young or as fast as we used to be; need to make up for it in guile.

Rapport. Silenced hand gun.

“Shit!”

John’s still running with me. They missed. Shot was clearly aimed at him judging from the ricochet. Why? Because he’s a step behind or is there another reason? Second shot. Analysis. Oh. Intent is to incapacitate or kill John and grab me.

Change in strategy; need a heavily monitored public place to take the firearms out of the equation. Adjust mental route. Skid out of the alley onto the pavement. Decent amount of traffic to slow them down. Ah, wonderful; tube station entrance is to the right and across the road just as I remembered. That will do nicely. Dart into traffic. Screech of brakes, horns, John swearing under his breath. Take the stairs two at a time, leap the barrier, John is still with me. Average station security response time 2.5 minutes not fast enough. Down to the platform, off the edge and across the tracks, leap and lever up onto the opposite platform. TRAIN! Turn, grab John haul him onto the platform by brute force. I’m going to feel that tomorrow.

People are staring. Hand in pocket, pull out Lestrade’s warrant card and waive it. Smile, “Security exercise, carry on!” Head for the exit at a brisk walk.

“If you keep this up we are going to cause an accident you know.”

John’s respiration is only slightly labored. All that jogging is paying off. Now that we are no longer in a defensive stance I can engineer an ambush. Segregate one of the pursuing parties and capture him. Once that is done it won’t take long to deduce who and why. Glance at John, he nods in agreement. No words needed; again the benefits of a long and successful partnership.

Share another smile with John, “Oh I fully intend to.”

The game is very definitely on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t normally hear Sherlock’s voice clearly but he came out of the woodwork for this prompt. These events occur concurrently with parts of Conversations Chapter 27. Yes gentle readers…we are back into the Find/protect the Asset story arc.


	50. I Stuck It in the Washing Machine

“Sherlock why is Gladstone wearing what looks like a small version of my maroon jumper?”

“I borrowed it for a mud spatter experiment then threw it in the washing machine and it shrank.  If it’s any consolation the color looks much better on him than it ever did on you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here we are...half way through the list and another 3 sentence fiction happens.


	51. You Just Missed It.

Q-branch was quiet; too quiet. Moneypenny looked around as she entered. Q was nowhere in sight and all the minions looked somewhat stunned. She made her way over to Spider’s workstation.

“What’s up?” she asked cautiously.

“You just missed it,” he replied in a somewhat subdued tone of voice.

“Missed what?”

It was as if her question opened the flood gates.

“Oh it was stunning. Never seen anything like it. Simply awesome,” were a few of the things she heard as all the minions present tried to tell her what happened all at once.

She waived a hand to cut off the babble then looked at Spider so he could explain in a coherent manner.

“Dr. Watson came into the branch and started talking to Q,” he started.

Moneypenny thought she knew where this was going. Q had only been back at work a few weeks after his mandatory leave due to the kidnapping. Needless to say everyone as well as Q’s brothers had been attempting to make sure he didn’t overwork. Of course Q being Q had been just as diligently trying to wade through the backlog of things that only he could do. Keeping him working less than a 12 hour day was proving to be quite a task for all involved. He’d also been dodging both the medical and psych departments who were trying to keep track of his recovery. Medical, it seemed, had brought out the _big gun_ in the form of Dr. John H. Watson medical professional extraordinaire and expert wrangler of genius, specifically those surnamed Holmes.

Spider, unaware of Moneypenny’s momentary distraction, continued, “Well we think he’d just about convinced Q to back off a bit and go to medical for his checkup when 006 and 007 arrived to drop off their equipment from the Peruvian mission.”

“They were rather battered,” another minion chimed in. “I’m not quite sure how they managed to talk their way onto the plane in the shape they were in.”

Spider glared at his co-worker who cringed and sat down, “Watson didn’t say a word. He just looked both 00’s up and down then sighed loudly. He watched them turn in their equipment then simply shrugged and left the branch. I still am not quite sure what happened. Watson hadn’t even cleared the door when 006, 007 and even Q went trailing after him. They were in a line by height and equally spaced out. Like…like,” Spider seemed to lose words for a moment. “They looked like ducklings,” he blurted.

Moneypenny had to smile at the image. She had suspected for a while but this just confirmed it. Humming to herself she left Q-branch with the intent of adding Dr. Watson to the short list of people who had the unofficial designation of _00 handler_.


	52. It Should Only Take Six Minutes

It was a bit surreal being _on mission_ in London. Walking familiar streets, past familiar landmarks with all the sounds and smells that signified home yet still being in that hyper-aware state that was 00 on a mission. Working in country was unusual but not unprecedented especially when the target was an international arms smuggling ring that MI6 had been chasing across three continents for the last four months. Finding the linchpin of the operation or more importantly the data in his computer right under their noses had been somewhat of a surprise. It had taken a bit of diplomacy between M and the Home Office to allow an operation on British soil and that was the reason why a 00 was tasked with what in any other circumstance would be performed by a standard agent.

James sauntered down the street radiating _just another business man heading home after stopping at his local_. As he turned the corner and started down the block that held his target this evening his earpiece, which was disguised to look like a standard Bluetooth headset, went live.

“Good evening 007,” Q’s tenor came in clearly. “I’ve been told to remind you that your target’s property is next door to the Minister of Transportation and his back garden abuts the city residence of a member of the House of Lords so keep things quiet.”

James mentally translated this as _don’t blow up the house if you get caught_.

“Our friend Monsignor Fileget is making deals at the Nigerian Embassy gala. Moneypenny has him under surveillance and will alert me if he leaves. I’ll divert the alarm signal when you enter so the security service should not respond. It should only take six minutes once you find the computer. Just put in the thumb drive, turn it on and the programming should do the rest."

“Sounds good,” James gave a verbal response and nodded at the pair of constables who were walking toward him on the pavement. “I’m almost to my friend’s house. I’ll see you tomorrow then,” he added as he passed the two.

James could hear Q faintly giving directions to his minions. He knew that in short order they would know everything about this particular set of the MET’s finest right down to the color of their pants.

It was only a moment later when Q said, “You are clear.”

James merely made a double click affirmative, his mind now focused on the B&E. A quick check of his surroundings confirmed Q’s assessment and he slipped down the alleyway that accessed the rubbish bins and what in earlier times would have been called the servant’s entrance. From there it was a simple matter to pick the lock and gain entrance into the house.

“Given our previous dealings with this group the machine you are looking for most likely will be a laptop or a tablet,” Q remarked.

James gave another double click. He would start his search in the office. If he was lucky Monsignor Fileget had left his equipment out in the open ready for use when he returned from the party.

James was lucky. The laptop was sitting on the office desk. James inserted the thumb drive and turned the machine on. Now all he had to do was wait. It was only a minute later when James felt a change in air pressure. Someone had opened an outside door to the house.

“Incoming,” Q said quietly in his ear. “The back door sensor has been tripped. Someone was clever. They used CCTV blind spots to get there because we’ve been monitoring in a three block radius and haven’t picked up anything.”

James didn’t bother to reply. Instead he positioned himself to grab and immobilize whomever was making an entry. He didn’t have to wait long. The door to the office swung open and a tall lean figure enveloped in a long coat entered. He paused just inside the door surveying the room. James moved to grab him in a sleeper hold, hoping to render the intruder unconscious quickly just in case he had an accomplice or two. It didn’t work. With an uncanny bit of timing the man ducked his chin and angled his shoulder just as Bond grabbed him resulting in a scuffle. The man was thin but stronger than he looked. James adjusted his hold and prepared to knock the guy unconscious the old fashioned way, with his fist, when he heard the unmistakable sound of a pistol being cocked somewhere behind him.

“Let him go,” said a tenor voice that sounded vaguely familiar to Bond.

“Shit,” said Q in his ear only a moment behind. “Shit, Shit, Shit. Why the fuck didn’t anyone pick that up! They shouldn’t have been anywhere near there!”

James complied with the order and released his hold on the intruder in the coat. The man calmly stepped away, straightened his coat flipping up the collar in the process.

Once he had rectified his appearance the one and only Sherlock Holmes pivoted and said, “Fancy meeting you here Mr. Bond.”


	53. I Won't Make It to Breakfast

Shirley, otherwise known as R, listened as the mission went progressively from bad to worse to shot all to hell. When things had first started to deteriorate Q, with that sixth sense of his for trouble, had pulled in a full component of branch staff. Now they could only wait to see if 007 could pull off another of his miracles.

“Q,” Bond sounded a bit out of breath which was unusual.  “I’m sorry; I won’t make it to breakfast.”

R stifled a gasp and she heard several of the others in the room make similar noises. Something personal like that over the coms, especially from a 00, meant that the agent in question thought the chances of his personal survival were somewhere in the slim to none range. R couldn’t remember the last time a 00 had invoked that particular protocol and to have 007 do so meant the situation was beyond dire. She looked at Q. He was standing at his workstation calm, cool, and collected as always.

“Well then James,” he replied, “I guess I’ll just have to take a rain check then.”

R’s morbid thoughts were effectively derailed by that statement, replaced with an entirely new set of concerns.  She started making a mental list: institute the _all hands on deck_ protocol, activate the feeding schedule, cancel the weekend plans, and set up for round the clock operations. Q had given notice that he was going to move heaven and earth to extract 007 if it was humanly possible. But first and foremost, she observed, the evil overlord of Q branch would need a new cup of tea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It seems like my muse is in snippet mode these days. As always: reviews, comments, kudos, and suggestions are welcome as they feed my muse.


	54. If He Doesn't Stop I'll Not Get Any Sleep

It had happened so often that it was almost a rite of passage in Q branch, the first time a newbie ended up listening or watching an agent engaged in something that was normally done in private. It wasn’t usually this extreme; most new branch members didn’t get exposed to 007 in full on seduction mode their first time out.  Q had identified the scenario some 15 minutes ago from Bond’s body language and the surreptitious wink he’d aimed at the surveillance camera. The rest of the branch picked up on it when 007 used the code phrase that indicated he wanted them to keep the coms open. He usually only invoked that when he wanted someone to analyze any intelligence tidbits obtained as soon as possible. Q wasn’t exactly sure what Bond thought was so important but he’d run with it. Robert, the only virgin in the room to agent porn, would just have to cope. It would, Q thought, be a really good test to see if the young man was truly cut out for life in the branch.

As Bond chatted up his target, the best friend of the Drug trafficker’s wife, Q glanced down at his screen. As he had suspected a small icon indicated the usual betting pool was in full swing. He clicked on the icon to see what the offerings were and at what odds. There was the usual crop of bets: how fast the knicker’s came off, number of orgasms, amount of time until the phrase oh James was uttered. There was also a separate set of bets regarding whether or not the incipient carnal activities would be interrupted and by whom. A little further down the list as befitting the fact that they had a newbie in their midst were a whole series of bets regarding Robert’s potential reactions to the proceedings.

A number of hours and a whole host of actionable intelligence information later Bond was going for a third round and the denizens of Q branch were amazed at their new co-worker’s stoicism. In this type situation is was not uncommon for members of the branch to need to excuse themselves for several minutes. Q allowed it so long as the appropriate coverage was maintained. His employees were only human. There were only a few folks, Q among them, who could sit through a 007 marathon without needing to let off some steam. Robert, it appeared, was going to be one of that number.

It was quite a while later, Bond was on round four, when Robert finally made a comment.  “If he doesn’t stop I’ll not get any sleep,” he complained. “I’m almost back around to my clock-in time.”

He’ll do, Q thought.


	55. The Cat Had Appeared Out of Nowhere

It had been a while since he’d had a rifle cradled in his hands, the stock nuzzled up against his shoulder for hours on end. It had been even longer since he’d had a spotter. Today he happened to have both. There was nothing in Eve Moneypenny’s dossier that indicated she’d ever acted as a spotter before today. Then again he thought, she had been an A list agent before becoming M’s assistant and unofficial bodyguard so obtaining proficiency with minimal training was well within her presumed skill set. Given the information she was relaying he suspected that she had received something other than just the standard briefing. No, Mycroft Holmes suspected the delicate hand of his youngest brother along with the expertise of a certain 00 had been involved. Regardless of the source, her assistance meant that he could concentrate more fully on the shot without having to gain the information he needed himself.

“We are in position,” John Watson’s voice came in crisply over the earpiece he was wearing. The man was clearly in command of his portion of the operation.

Mycroft ignored the inevitable chatter that accompanied the announcement as others, including his spotter, indicated their status. He instead concentrated on looking through the scope, factoring in the environmental variables, calming his heart rate, and waiting for the go ahead.

“You have a green light,” Moneypenny said softly.

Mycroft exhaled, paused for a moment, then took the shot. As soon as he had confirmed the first guard was down he repositioned and took the second shot. 

“Tango Down, Tango Down,” Moneypenny relayed to the rest of the team.

As he watched three figures in combat fatigues pelted across the open area to the building’s door, it took only a moment or two for the first one to pick the lock and the second man to move inside. Before the third moved into the building he dropped a package and casually kicked it into a pile of trash next to the door. The target that he would need to hit to set off the explosives contained therein was nicely positioned from his vantage point. The placement was too perfect to be anything but intentional. Thank you very much Mr. Bond. 

Mycroft maintained his surveillance on the building. It wouldn’t do to have the extraction team surprised by someone entering after them. 

“Huh?” Moneypenny murmured just as Mycroft caught a flash of movement.

The cat had appeared out of nowhere. From its body language and speed it had been disturbed by something, no someone. Mycroft focused in on the area where he had first spotted movement. Yes, there, another guard. From what little he could see the man appeared to be on a mobile. He was either calling for reinforcements or alerting the people inside and neither option meant good news for the extraction team.

“We’ve got a guy on a mobile,” Moneypenny had seen the same thing.

“I’ll trace the call,” Q’s voice cut into the feed. “Take the shot when you are able. Gentlemen you may as well be noisy,” he added clearly including John Watson’s group. “I’ll let you know if you are going to have outside company.”

Mycroft didn’t bother to acknowledge as his target had just moved enough for him to thread a bullet through a gap between the corner of the building and the bin the man was hiding behind; aim, exhale…

“Tango down,” Moneypenny relayed to the rest. 

The two of them settled down to watch and wait and see if the reinforcements called in by the now deceased guard showed up before the extraction group found his missing P.A.

It was only a couple minutes later when “Package acquired, need med evac ASAP,” came over the coms followed by a stream of medical jargon. 

Half of Mycroft’s mind automatically interpreted and analyzed the information while another part simply reveled in the fact that they had found her and she was still alive.

“Evac in three minutes; additional bogies in five,” Q’s voice was calm and matter of fact.

Mycroft sighed. He would be needed to set off the explosives as a distraction to allow the capture of the reinforcements. That meant he wouldn’t be able to ride along in the helicopter. 

There was a light touch on his arm. “You go, I’ll take it from here sir,” Moneypenny’s face was sympathetic as she held out her hand for the rifle. “This isn’t as difficult as shooting at a fight on the top of a moving train. Besides I have to stick around for the cleanup anyway.”

“Thank you,” Mycroft replied as he stood up and started toward the stairwell. Just before he headed down a thought occurred and he turned back, “Ms. Moneypenny could you do me a favor when you are cleaning up?”

“Of course Mr. Holmes,” she replied as she was settling into his former position, “what is it?”

“If you happen to find that cat please ensure that it is provided a suitable reward. Things would have been quite a bit more difficult without its timely appearance.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gentle Readers: I'll be updating the timeline shortly so you can see where everything fits.


	56. Run!

He hadn’t had an evening like this in a long time. Dinner, a movie, stop in at the local for a drink had all gone smoothly and there was the high potential for something more if Greg was reading the signs correctly. Surprisingly there had been no interruptions from work and no crisis with the name Holmes attached to it to interrupt. Greg Lestrade hadn’t ever had a relationship like this either. Not even his now dissolved marriage had felt like this. Once he had recovered from the shock that Shirley his IT girlfriend was actually second in command for MI6 technical services and was legally restricted from telling him that simple fact before having it sprung upon him at a crime scene; he thought he might have found, for lack of a better term, his soulmate.

Walking out of the local heading for her place Greg felt his radar, developed from years as a constable, go off. He quickly identified the tough who had followed them out the door as _looking for trouble_. Half a block later with no cab in sight Greg reassessed; the man was _looking for trouble with him_. Shirley didn’t seem to be aware of the potential problem as they ambled down the pavement. Greg’s brain was in overdrive attempting to figure out how to avoid a confrontation or absent that, get Shirley out of harm’s way.

The tough made his move sooner than Greg had expected rushing them and pushing them both into an alley where things immediately went from bad to worse because two other thugs were waiting. Greg realized that this wasn’t random, it was planned.

“Run!” he ordered Shirley as he elbowed the guy who had pushed them into the alley.

“No.” Shirley replied in a no-nonsense tone of voice as she reached out and laid a hand on the closest of their three attackers. There was a sudden crack and the thug she had touched went down twitching.

Luckily Greg recovered before either of the other two thugs. He took a punch at the guy in front of him and connected well enough to cause the man to stagger off balance. That gave him enough of an opening to grab his coat and shove him head first into the side of a handy rubbish bin. The guy dropped stunned. Greg whirled expecting a further attack only to find that the original attacker had taken off at a run.

He looked around and spotted Shirley digging around in her purse with her foot between the shoulder blades of the guy she had taken down. She pulled her hand out and waived something that looked like zip ties at him. Greg wasn’t going to argue and in short order they had the two remaining attackers secured. Of course, that was when his mobile rang.

“Hello?”

“Good evening Detective Inspector Lestrade,” a somewhat familiar voice said.

“Who is this?” he half barked afraid that the entire attack scenario had been some Moriarty like criminal attempting to teach him a lesson.  
“In this situation on an unsecured line I think you better call me Quentin,” came the reply. Greg knew that name and he relaxed somewhat. This was Shirley’s boss and Sherlock’s brother, the Quartermaster of MI6. “I just called to ask if you wished to assert jurisdiction over the miscreants.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Oh yes. Since a member of my department hit the panic button I have the authority to investigate the cause as a matter of national security but if you want to deal with it I’d be happy to concede the jurisdiction and the attendant paperwork.” Q sounded as if the former was more to his preference.

“No thanks, they are all yours.” Greg took the implied offer.

“I have a team on the way. Now,” Q continued, “If you would do me a favor and relocate with your companion to a secure location, say your flat, while I deal with the resulting investigation that would be much appreciated.”

Greg could hear the smile in the younger man’s voice. It was the Holmsian version of caring. Never admit you were doing something nice without a stated ulterior motive; no matter how transparent that motive happened to be. It was clear that Q was going to do whatever it took to keep his second’s evening as unspoiled as possible. As Greg looked across at Shirley she smiled at him as if she knew exactly what Q had suggested without even hearing the conversation.

“Oh, and tell my colleague that I would like a report on the efficacy and ease of use of the stun bracelets on my desk sometime tomorrow,” Q added before ringing off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Occurs a bit after QEF when Q has been back at work for a bit. Q told my muse that some of his best ideas were inspired by movies. Any guesses what movie(s) Q had been watching during his recovery?


	57. Something Wrong With Its Eyes

I’d left Bond guarding Lisa and managed to get Mycroft Holmes to actually sleep, with the help of a surreptitious sedative, so I was somewhat at loose ends. I quickly came to the conclusion that I should attempt to grab some shut-eye while I could. I was on the way to bunk down in one of the staff rooms when I came face to face with one of the last people I ever expected to encounter in the MI6 medical wing.

Eric Nelson had been a vet assigned to one of the bases I had been stationed at in Afghanistan providing medical assistance to canine units scattered all over the region. I had ended up working with him on several occasions when he’d needed to reallocate supplies to treat one of his furry patients. Given that the dogs had saved countless people from injury or death I hadn’t begrudged either him or them the assistance in the least.

“Watson! How the hell are you? I heard you’d been injured out but I didn’t know you’d landed in with this lot,” he waived his hand to indicate MI6.

“Long story short,” I replied, “Yes I got shot. I’m fine and well…” I had to pause and think just how to explain why I was here right now. “I’m attached to a multi-agency operation at present but I work locum for these guys on occasion. How did you end up here if I can ask?”

Eric laughed, “I didn’t know I was treating half the pets of MI-bloody-6 until the night they hauled me out of bed to dig a computer chip out of a ferret!”

“A ferret?”

“A smuggled ferret to boot. Apparently he’d swallowed some sort of computer chip and it was important enough to get me out of bed to retrieve it.” Eric grinned, “I think he’s living down in the IT department.” Eric paused, “I’m not quite sure why I’m here right now tho.”

I didn’t respond since my brain was busy coping with the idea of a weasel in the basement of MI6. I could just see Quentin Holmes, head of Q-Branch, arguing that providing safe haven for an illegal ferret was somehow in the best interest of national security. As if thinking of the man conjured him, Q popped out of a treatment room further down the hall.

“Well it’s not chipped,” he was saying to someone in the room, “but there’s definitely something wrong with its eyes.” Q looked down the hall and spotted Eric and I then continued, “But Dr. Nelson is here and he’ll be able to figure it out.”

“Ah, that’s my cue then,” said Eric as he started toward Q. “You want to come with?” he asked over his shoulder.

I grunted an affirmative and trailed on after him curious to see why MI6 needed the services of a vet.

It was a cat. A bedraggled gangly grey and white cat cradled in the arms of M’s P.A., Moneypenny.

Eric got right to work and rather quickly determined that the cat seemed to be suffering from a mild infection and dehydration which was, in part, the reason its eyes were glassy and crusted. I did my part by rounding up some supplies at Eric’s direction. Throughout the entire process I could tell that Eric was trying valiantly not to ask why MI6 was providing services to what clearly was a homeless cat. Some of the curiosity must have shown on both Eric and my faces because as soon as cat was dosed and on the road to recovery Ms. Moneypenny read us in.

“This cat,” she informed Eric with a straight face, “managed to keep a recent operation on track saving several lives. I was directed by a superior to retrieve it and ensure a suitable reward.”

The way she phrased it made me wonder; had Mycroft Holmes really used his not inconsiderable clout to rescue a cat?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ferret eating the computer chip was borrowed from a fic that I’ve not been able to find again. It may have been a chinchilla in the original fic I’m thinking of. If anyone knows what it is please let me know so I can give the author proper credit.
> 
> Edit: Found it! The story is [Chip](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1049171) by the wonderful and prolific [Kryptaria](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Kryptaria/pseuds/Kryptaria). Many thanks to [PewterGreyWolf](http://archiveofourown.org/users/PewterGreyWolf/pseuds/PewterGreyWolf) for giving me enough information to find the story again.


	58. The Stain Had a Rather Distinct Shape

It was late in the evening while we were all sitting around relaxing after concluding our meeting when the pain hit. Surprisingly it was Feliciano who noticed first and figured out what was wrong. He organized everything right down to ordering Gilbert and Matthew to take me to the airport and ensure that I got on the correct plane. While in the air I managed to get myself back together again and brace for what was surely going to be an overwhelming amount of information when I set foot on British soil.

When the plane touched down at Heathrow I could feel Rose’s concern reaching out to me. Of course she knew; she was my daughter after all. Even without my feet on the ground I was getting flashes of information. I knew who and roughly what had happened and most importantly where I needed to go; Scotland. 

To this day I’m not quite sure how I managed to clear customs. I have no memory at all of the time between touch down and when I met Rose at the arrival gate. She took one look at me and said “Train I think.” She then conveyed me to Euston station and booked me through to Glasgow. “Allister will have a car for you when you arrive,” she commented as she saw me to the compartment. “A driver too if you wish.”

“No,” I replied to the offer. “I need to go alone. Allister will understand.”

“Safe journey then,” was her reply accompanied by a hug.

By the time I’d arrived in Glasgow I had a much better handle on things. Allister met me and handed over the keys without saying a word. I was grateful for that. 

It was midafternoon when I arrived. The sun was shining brightly over the moor belying my mood. A stag stood tall and proud on the one gatepost still standing but the house was a complete and utter ruin. I could see the evidence that the site had been cleared somewhat. It was no longer obvious that the devastation had been caused by anything other than some sort of explosion. Not, say, from a helicopter slamming into the side of the building or a series of booby traps or a firefight or all of the above. At least from a distance it looked almost as if the ruin had been that way for years but for the residual smell of stale smoke in the air. 

The chapel still stood undamaged and it called to me. I made my way over to it and entered. Wandering up the aisle I arrived at a spot where the pews had been moved out of line. The floor had been cleaned but I could still see the evidence of what happened. The stain had a rather distinct shape. I knelt and put my hand on the floor. Yes it was here; here that my iron lady, my shadow knight had breathed her last. I closed my eyes and committed all that the chapel had to tell me to memory.

I’m not sure how long I had knelt when someone cleared their throat. I looked up. Halfway down the aisle stood an older Scotsman. His face was weathered and he held a shotgun over his arm. 

“I dinna ken her long,” he said, “but I could tell she was a good one that Emma.”  
I stood. “That she was,” I agreed as I met his eyes.

There are few of my people left who possess the sight and fewer still who have the knowledge to understand just what they see. This man appeared to be one of those few as his eyes widened and he inclined his head in a half bow of respect. I concentrated for a moment and the land told me his name, Albert Kincaid. 

He surprised me by continuing in a conversational tone, “She was one of yours then?”

“Yes, she indeed was mine.”

He nodded as if I had merely confirmed something he’d already figured out. “And James?” he asked.

I hesitated. James wasn’t yet one of my knights. He was on the path to be one but he was still being tempered in the forge of adversity and it was unclear yet whether or not he would break.

Something must have shown in my face because Kincade didn’t wait for my answer but said, “Ach, that explains things then.” His gaze went a bit distracted for a moment then he added, “He has been before and will be again if you find someone to anchor him to you.”

I knew then that this Kincaid was not only gifted with sight but also with prophesy. It is the nature of that gift that the holder can upon occasion see clearly a path amongst the shifting strands of potential futures. It’s also part and parcel that they can only speak of the events they see in vague terms or riddles. 

“Thank you,” I said. “I will.”

I left the chapel then. I had done what I needed to do and been given a gift of knowledge in addition. As I drove back to Glasgow I pondered the implications of the bit of foresight that Kincaid had given me and considered my possible actions. I realized that this information did not change anything. No, the person who would have the best chance of providing such an anchor was already in position. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you unfamiliar with Hetalia it is based on the premise that nations are represented by avatars. Arthur Kirkland is the personification of Britain. Rose Kirkland, his daughter, is a fan created character that personifies the greater London. Allister Kirkland is a quasi-fan created character (fan name, artist sketch and a single appearance) personifying Scotland. Feliciano is Northern Italy, Gilbert is Prussia and Matthew is Canada. The character Kincaid is not given a first name in Skyfall so I borrowed the first name of the actor who played him.


	59. When He Turned His Head It Was Gone

Q caught the flash of green out of the corner of his eye as he was rummaging about in the bathroom extracting the large plastic bin that contained his first aid kit. Ah, he thought to himself, my hallucination is back again.

He’d first seen it when he’d been kidnapped by an ex-lover, drugged, and high as a kite. It had started out as a mint green hedgehog shaped lump with stylized rabbit ears then morphed into typical fantasy book cover version of a fairy. The only difference from the classic rendition was that it had been male, anatomically correct, and had tiny rabbit ears. Q, despite his inebriated state, remembered having a conversation with the thing where it gave him encouragement then morphed again into something resembling the Tenniel illustration of the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, except in multiple shades of green. In his debriefing Q had reported _drug induced hallucinations_ but hadn’t gone into much detail. Of course he never told anyone about the subsequent occurrences.

He’d seen the apparition several times when he was rusticating at Mycroft’s. A simple smear of green, usually just after he awoke from a nap, that was gone by the time he got his eyes fully opened. Since then he’d seen that particular flash of green in his flat, on the tube and once in the hall of 221 Baker Street. He never got a clear look at it. Most often is was simply a flash or a blob of green that when he turned his head it was gone. The sightings were extremely intermittent and did not appear to follow any particular pattern. He wouldn’t catch sight of it for months then suddenly it was there three days in a row.

There’d even been a couple of times when he’d seen it in the Branch. The most memorable of these was just before a rather expensive infrared camera had flared our spectacularly in a shower of sparks. Q had been surprised with that one because when one of the techs examined the video feed they had discovered a green blob in one corner of the picture which had quickly spread to cover the entire screen just prior to the camera shorting. Everyone assumed that it was a physical manifestation of the malfunction. Q, upon noting the color, had wondered.

This time was a bit different. Q could see the small bunny shaped blob sitting on the floor of the bathroom. It seemed to be peering around the door frame into his sitting room, presumably looking at Bond who was currently oozing blood onto his sofa and perusing his movie server.

“Hitchcock Q?” Bond asked conversationally. “I would have guessed something with more special effects.”

“Took a film appreciation class in Uni and got hooked on classic cinema,” Q replied picking up the first aid bin and carefully not focusing on the green bunny looking thing.

“North by Northwest?” Bond asked.

“Fine,” Q cleared the doorway without hitting or acknowledging the blob, “but first I think we need to bandage you up a bit. It will be awfully uncomfortable if you end up falling asleep and sticking yourself to the sofa.”  
It was a sign of how tired Bond was that he didn’t argue. He just grunted, stood and shed his clothes as Q deposited the bin on the coffee table.

“You think anything will need stitches?” Q asked as he started looking Bond over.

“There’s a cut on my back that may need butterfly strips but that’s about it,” Bond paused for a moment. “Oh, and I may have a minor concussion though it doesn’t feel like it.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because unless you’ve spilled paint I keep seeing a blob of mint green out of the corner of my eye.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place during Fanaticism. So much for people not seeing Arthur Kirkland’s fae friends.


	60. What Kind of Party Are We Talking About?

I looked at the E-mail from a blank sender and read the subject line again, _Your Presence is Requested_. Given that the people who had this particular E-mail address I could count on one hand and the fact that there was only one of those who would routinely obscure his sending address I decided it was safe to open it.

As I suspected it was an invitation to some sort of event. Just what type of event I wasn’t sure since Quentin, Sherlock’s half-brother, had used every synonym for celebration known to man in his text. He’d given me a date and a time as well as a postscript that he’d really appreciate it if I could get Sherlock to attend. I assumed that the directions were in the attachment and that since the time was 15:20 on Thursday that there was going to be some travel involved. I clicked on the attachment but it didn’t open.

“Hey Sherlock,” I asked my flat mate who was currently glued to his microscope at the kitchen table, “your brother sent us an invite to a party but the attachment containing the directions won’t open.”

“Mycroft wouldn’t use something as pedestrian as E-mail so what kind of party are we talking about to which Q would invite us?”

“I might be able to tell you that if I could open the attachment!”

Sherlock huffed and go up imperiously demanding, “give it here.”

I handed over the laptop and watched as Sherlock proceeded to get increasingly frustrated in his attempts to open the file. After an hour or so of intermittent grumbling Sherlock finally sat my laptop back down on the coffee table and sat back in his chair.

“Well?”

“It’s time locked.”

“What?”

“It won’t open until Thursday morning at 8:00. My brother has clearly constructed this to intrigue me. I have 48 hours to see if I can break the coding,” Sherlock said steepling his hands in front of his face, “let me think on this.”

I had to smile to myself. Quentin had definitely engaged his brother’s curiosity. Now it was up to me to ensure that Sherlock actually went even if it was just to brag that he’d broken through Q’s security measure.

“You could always just wait until Thursday morning,” I commented.

I didn’t get a reply so I went to clean up the experimental detritus Sherlock had left in the kitchen and make myself some tea.

Sherlock managed to get the attachment open about 13:40 on Wednesday only to discover that most of the message was in some sort of cypher. The non-cypher portion of the message read simply _Business casual attire or better is suggested_. I mentally revised what I’d planned to wear upward to my good grey suit. This sounded more like a formal function than a family get together.

Sherlock, of course, dove into the cypher immediately. By Wednesday night he was well and truly frustrated. I’d managed to get him to both eat and sleep a bit by reminding him that his brain would work better on the problem if he engaged in needed maintenance from time to time. The food and sleep must have worked because Sherlock seemed to be making progress by late Thursday morning.

I had decided to prepare some lunch in the hopes I could convince Sherlock to eat it when my mobile went off. It was a text from James reading _If he doesn’t crack it Alec will pick you up at 14:45_. Now that was interesting. James Bond, formerly 007 and Q’s partner, was in on the whatever-it-was and had deputized his friend and co-worker to ensure that we made it to the event. I erased the text.

By 13:30 I looked in on Sherlock before going to get dressed. He had managed to convert the cypher to a set of numbers. I don’t know why I saw it when Sherlock hadn’t figured it out but if you ignored most of the 1’s and 0’s there was a set of GPS coordinates in the middle of the text.

“Are those GPS coordinates somewhere in the City?” I asked as I headed for the bathroom.

Sherlock didn’t acknowledge me but instead started typing frantically and before I reached the door said, “It’s in the middle of the block. I suppose we’ll be picked up at the appropriate time.”

“Sound’s good,” I replied, “I’m taking a shower. You can have it afterwards.”

Once I was safely ensconced in the bathroom I texted James back _He cracked it_ then erased the sent message.

Thanks to Sherlock’s magical taxi summoning ability, which I still maintain should be registered some sort of mutant power, we arrived at the designated location at 15:18. It was directly in front of a generic government office building. I took a quick look at the list of offices and had to suppress a smile. Suddenly everything made sense.

It made even more sense when at exactly 15:20 a large black saloon pulled up and disgorged one Mycroft Holmes and his assistant. Sherlock furrowed his brow upon seeing them but was forestalled by his brother raising a hand and asking his assistant, “Arcadia what was the room number again?”

“535,” she replied not looking up from her blackberry.

Sherlock whirled and looked at the building placard then back at his brother.

“You knew?”

“Not until I exited the car,” he glanced at Arcadia who wisely was still doing something on her mobile then added, “shall we proceed and grace this event with our presence?”

“I suppose given what he did to get us both here.”

With that the two elder Holmes strode into the building. I looked at Arcadia who had put away her blackberry and offered her my arm.

“Shall we?” I asked.

“Yes,” she smiled, “It just wouldn’t do to be late to the wedding.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No this set of prompts hasn’t been abandoned. I just got jumped by an entirely new set of AU plot bunnies which just won’t leave me alone.


	61. I Do Not Like the Look of the Water

“I’m going around the lake,” James Bond commented over the coms as he stealthy exited the African warlord’s compound, “because I do not like the look of the water.”

“That’s going to make your window to rendezvous with the exfiltration team rather short you know.”

“Well Q, I am assuming that you’d prefer a missed exfil to losing your data and your tech to a couple hippopotami.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This particular prompt was causing all sorts of problems until I remembered that hippos are territorial and aggressive especially towards humans. They are commonly considered one of the most dangerous animals in Africa.


	62. Supposed to Meet in Two Hours

Sitting in an alley next to an industrial bin emulating a homeless person was certainly near the top of the list of things I never expected to be doing. Being on the run and hiding from an unknown number of criminal assailants who wanted to kill or capture me was also on that list and given the security that comes with my position it was most likely in the top 10 of things I wouldn’t have expected. However it must say something about either my position or me that the high probability of a mole somewhere in Britain’s intelligence services doesn’t even make the list.

The possibility of a mole was, of course, the reason I happened to be crossing off the other two items off my unlikely activities list. Originally no one other than the intelligence brass and agents participating in the exercise should have known that the “asset” they were being asked to find or protect was me. Given the size of the exercise and the need for communications I suspected that a good number of folks in the technical services of MI-5 had some idea early on. Q branch most certainly had figured it out relatively quickly due to my absence and the fact that Ann had used one of my people, Robert, to help her track me down. Now since I had evaded at least one attack and was officially missing I suspected that a good portion of both MI-5 and MI-6 knew.

I had determined that the longer I stayed out in the cold so to speak the easier it would be for my branch and potentially others to locate and catch not only my attackers but also whomever tipped them off about my relatively unprotected status. Unfortunately at present I was not and could not use any of the normal means of communication set up for just such purposes. If the mole had access to my branch or worse yet was one of my own, getting in touch would just put an even larger target on my back. I also had to assume that my normal haunts, fall backs and all the entries to 6 itself were compromised. All of which was why I had sent Ann on an old school style mission to pass a note regarding my plans to one of a few people whom I trusted explicitly to get the message where it needed to go.

We were supposed to meet here in two hours. It had now been closer to three and I was getting worried. As most of the 00’s will tell you I don’t do well with intelligence blackout conditions. I found myself tapping my foot impatiently.

“Stop jittering,” Billy Wiggins hissed at me. “It doesn’t go with the persona. If she’s not here in another half hour I’ll leave one of my friends to watch for her and get you to the safe house.”

I attempted to relax. It wasn’t easy. Luckily I didn’t have to try very long because less than five minutes later Ann slipped into the alley. She had changed clothes and was now wearing a rather disreputable trench coat over what looked like a rather nice dress and a pair of grubby trainers.

“Message delivered,” she said.

“Give me the full report,” I replied. Given her state of dress I suspected that there was an interesting tale in the offing.

“I figured my best bet was to attempt to get to R’s boyfriend the DI,” she started. “If worse came to worse I figured I’d hang out around the yard and catch him that way so I went back to that first bolt hole and snagged a dress and shoes.” Ann pulled a pair of pumps out of the trench coat pockets. “I was lucky. I hadn’t been there an hour when the DI came out. I tracked him to a pub where he ended up linking up with Dr. Watson.”

I had to smile to myself. Ann had been lucky indeed, both Watson and DI Lestrade were on the list of people I had given her.

Ann continued, “I didn’t spot anyone but I decided to wait until one or the other of them went for a second round just in case they were under long range surveillance. I met Watson at the bar. He recognized me so I had to do something quick. I pretended I was an old girlfriend grabbed him and snogged the hell out of him before he could say anything.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “The drop was supposed to be surreptitious.”

“I was just implementing something Bond told us once. He said if you can’t be subtle be outrageous. People will pay so much attention to the act and not so much to the person performing it. Besides,” she continued, “this is Dr. Watson. Rumor has it that he has a whole stable full of ex-girlfriends with whom he maintains friendly relations. During the process I slipped the message in his pocket while copping a feel to let him know it was there. When we stopped kissing I told him I needed to be somewhere and left telling him I’d call him later.” Ann grinned at me and added, “I also now have a better understanding of the Doc’s nickname. Boy can that man kiss!”

I didn’t quite know what to say to that. Ann was looking incredibly pleased with herself. It certainly had been a good save for what could have been a seriously blown cover. It also would allow her to call Watson directly if we needed to.

“Good job,” I said then looked at Billy. “Now let’s get to that safe house with the internet connection so I can do my thing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now we are back to operation find/protect the asset and 3 Continents Watson strikes again.


	63. You Wouldn't Believe What I found

“You wouldn’t believe what I found under there,” the woman John Watson would always think of as Anthea said as she sipped her tea in the sitting room of the Holmes’ Manor in Sussex.

Just as John was about to make a guess they were interrupted by the voice of Mycroft Holmes drifting in from the hall.

“Now Virginia,” he said in a stern but caring tone, “I know that leaving presents is your way of showing affection but a dead gopher under the bed is completely inappropriate; leave it on the front mat next time!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know various people were wondering where the cat would end up. Well now you know. This takes place while Anthea is still recovering from being kidnapped.


	64. The Smell Got Stranger Every Day

Inter-agency Memorandum

To: Mycroft Holmes

From: Gareth Mallory

Re: Temporarily Assigned Personnel

While it has been a pleasure to have Ms. Virginia Hall in the building this past week I regret to inform you that we have had to restrict her from the employee gym due to an unfortunate training accident with several members of the 00 section. I have been informed that Ms. Hall acquitted herself quite well in the incident and did not sustain any injuries. The same cannot be said for 006 and 007.

We were also required to remove her unescorted privileges to Q branch. While the Quartermaster appreciates her diligence in rodent eradication he does not appreciate the placement of the resultant bodies. The smell got stranger every day until the offending half desiccated mouse was found behind one of the main server racks.

Rest assured however that Ms. Hall remains welcome in the executive offices of MI6 if another temporary reassignment is necessary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well now you know the cat's full name. A bit of background Ms. Hall was an American spy working for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) in WWII. Throughout the war she ran around occupied France causing havoc for the Nazi forces. She apparently was considered by the Germans as one of the most dangerous allied spies and was on their "most wanted" list. To top all that she did it all on a prosthetic foot! Now you might think it strange that Mycroft would name a cat for an American spy but the cat limps and Ms. Hall was officially an MBE.


	65. Almost Couldn’t Understand (With All the Noise)

It was foggy when I popped out of the Circus basement.  A good old fashioned London pea soup fog that fit my mood exactly.  The last 12 hours had not been good to me and the way things were going the next 48 were not going to be much better. 

The whole thing had started with a joint training exercise.  Our A-list agents were meant to find and return safely a human asset while MI-5’s agents tried to stop us.  Q branch had been instructed to assist our agents but only if asked and only to the extent of the specific request, no more, no less.  Ann, A-19, had been smart when she called in and asked me point blank about my mandate.  That meant I was able to help her locate where the asset, namely the Quartermaster, was holed up with only minimal fuss on either of our parts.  Unfortunately less than a half hour after she’d gone in, the safe house blew up killing several members of a local gang and an unknown 3rd party.  The net result was 3 or so hours of debrief, aka interrogation, and another 2 of me writing an after action report.

By the time I got back down to the branch R had put the entire crew on the 3 watch rotation that we used whenever we needed a full component of staff around the clock for days on end.  6 hours on, 6 off, 6 on, 12 off followed by 6 on, 6 off, 6 on and 24 off with only 2 sections covering a 24 hour period made for a crazy schedule but no one ended up so sleep deprived that they would hallucinate.  Unfortunately I was on second watch and the current state of the cycle meant that I had technically worked through 5 of my 6 hour off period.  With only an hour to go before I was on again I knew I wouldn’t get any rest so I volunteered for a coffee run.

As I trudged through the fog toward the coffee shop I turned on my personal mobile.  There were three voice mail messages.  One was from my mother saying ‘yes, she’d feed my cats for the duration.’  The second was a robo-call telling me I’d won some sort of vacation if I’d just send them some money.  The third one was strange.  I almost couldn’t understand with all the noise.  It sounded like some female telling me about a bear at the bar.  Suddenly my brain hiccoughed and I recognized the voice.  It was Ann.  I quickly backed up the message and listened again.

At the end of the message I had more information than I’d started with but none of it was very good.  The number she’d called me from was a dead end since she’d lifted the mobile from a guy having a beer at the bar somewhere.  We’d probably be able to figure out where she’d called from but knowing Ann she wouldn’t call from anywhere that would be easy to trace her from.  The Quartermaster was safe but they were going to go to ground for a bit to keep everyone, MI6 included, off their trail.  The last bit of information was the kicker however we had a mole and it had to be someone that knew the Quartermaster was the asset.  That meant most of the main Q-branch staff, the executive offices, the training staff and the agents were suspect and I had no idea who I could trust. 

I pondered the problem as I waited for the coffee order.  Finally as I set off through the fog it dawned on me.  There was one person in MI6 who’s loyalty to the Quartermaster could not be questioned.  I knew then what I needed to do.  Sometime in the next few hours I needed to somehow get a secure message to James Bond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't figured out who's POV this is, may I direct your attention to Robert who originally came from the mail room and ended up as Ann's handler. Comments and constructive criticism feed the muse and are always welcome.


	66. Something Was Clogging the Vacuum

James Bond closed the door behind himself, looked around, and sighed. 

“007?” Q’s voice asked in response.

“Someone has tossed the place.”

“We already knew that from the police report,” Q pointed out.

“No, someone has been in since the property was taped off as a crime scene and really tossed the place. I’m looking at split sofa cushions, every drawer in the place removed, every cabinet opened. The whole house has been systematically searched.”

“Interesting,” Q sounded intrigued, “there’s nothing that indicates anyone has found the prototype or the blueprints. Given the amount of money offered I’d suspect if someone had it they’d be setting up an auction.”

“Not if they wanted to use it themselves.”

“None of the big boys have had any assets anywhere near Phoenix. I’ve been keeping track ever since Samonar offered it up to the highest bidder but got himself offed before anyone could make a bid.”

“So we’ve got a new player then,” Bond commented.

“Possibly, but it’s just as likely that no one has found it yet. Take a look 007 and see if you can spot anything. If not, then we may need to send you up to his cabin near Flagstaff.”

“Roger,” Bond acknowledged then set off on a tour of the trashed ranch house.

45 minutes later Bond found himself in a bedroom which had been converted into an office and lab. This particular room was even more ransacked than the rest of the house. Looking around he could see an overturned drawing table, a desk which looked to have been hacked apart as well as a layer of debris almost an inch thick from the contents of the worktable, a filing cabinet and the desk itself. This clearly was the room where Samonar did most of his design work and the most logical room for him to have hid the drawings and the prototype signal jammer. James couldn’t see any potential hiding place which had been left unexamined.

Samonar had been killed right inside his front door. From the police report all indications were that he’d been working when he’d been interrupted by his assailant. Acting on a hunch, James righted the drawing table and dug out a stool from under the clutter. He sat down on the stool and looked around. He hummed under his breath when he spotted a small covered outlet low on the wall just next to the leg of the drawing table.

“What do you have 007,” Q was quick to ask.

“Looks like a covered outlet,” Bond replied as he attempted to figure out how it worked. “It’s got a spring loaded flap, hinge on top, doesn’t appear to be wired, opens easily enough. Huh?”

“Bond?”

“I’m looking at a hole in the wall. About 5 cm in diameter with a couple of metal prongs sticking out from underneath the hole.”

“Send a picture.”

James did so then waited. Suddenly he heard faint laughter.

“Fred says it’s a whole house vacuum. They were real popular in the late sixties early seventies. Most of them have to be installed as part of the initial construction so they aren’t all that common anymore,” Q paused for a moment. “Oh, he says there should be a metal strip inside the hole. If you complete the circuit between the prongs and the strip the vacuum should turn on if it’s active.”

Because there wasn’t anything else to do James found a piece of wire and completed the circuit. The vacuum came on but it appeared to be straining and there was no suction that he could feel.

“Something is clogging the vacuum,” he said.

Just then the motor kicked down and there was suction. James quickly undid his wiring job then started off to look for the rest of the vacuum system. He vocalized a soft ha when he finally located it in a corner of the garage

“Find anything?” Q asked.

“Nothing yet, but we’ll see what I find when I dig through the vacuum canister.”


	67. You Can Only See It From One Angle

*ShadowMaster: Heya, can you see the door?*

*ElfLord: Nope. Allegedly you can only see it from one angle.*

*ShadowMaster: Well I can see it from right here.*

*ElfLord: Ah, you are correct. There it is. So do we knock or just barge in?*

You have any idea on the protocol Q?"

"Well considering it's a black market auction hiding in a game server it could be either be _play nice so we won’t kill you_ or _if you can't hack your way in you don't belong here anyway_."

"Well the guy who allegedly runs it has the handle Gauzz."

"In game terms that sounds awfully Orcish Tim."

*ElfLord: Barge in it is then.*

<4 hours later>

*ElfLord: This is quite a gauntlet.*

*ShadowMaster: Whoever coded that door really doesn't like visitors.*

"Remind me why we wanted to play into this rather than just use a brute force hack."

"Because I want to tag the participants in the auction for later."

"You see any holes in the code yet?"

"No but there should be one somewhere."

"Something like that?"

*ElfLord: Walk into the Purple Worm’s mouth!*

*ShadowMaster: Really?*

*ElfLord: Yeah, really.*

*ShadowMaster: Here goes. Be ready to cut me out if this doesn't work.*

<20 minutes later>

"You get them all Q?"

"Uh huh. This will make my life a lot easier the next time MOD has a leak."

"Understood, I'll be tracking the winning bidder. It will be interesting to see where the Trojan payload pops up."

*ElfLord: So ping me when you want to do another run.*

*ShadowMaster: Will do.*

*Shadow Master logged out*

*Elf Lord logged out*

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Items marked with * are in game communications.


	68. It Had Been So Easy the First Time

He remembered that day all too well. Last exam of the term taken, enough quid in the bank, and a whole weekend to squander in a veritable orgy of online activities; he’d been on top of the world. With all that what had he decided to do with his first bit of free time in months? Hack MI6 of course.

He’d done it before. The servers were top notch but the security was only decent. It had been so easy the first time. That day, however, things had been different. He’d brute forced his way through the primary authentication when he discovered an entirely new set of firewalls that hadn’t been there before. It took all evening and well into the wee hours of the morning to find a way in.

The results had been underwhelming. No hint of espionage. No major secrets. It had nothing more than a bunch of boring government documents the most interesting of which appeared to be the budget for the MI6 Canteen. He had thought at the time that he’d broken into the accounting division. Then he’d found it. It looked like a way into the mission files. Turned out it wasn’t.

He remembered the panic when his screen went blank and the words _Good Try_ scrolled across it. He’d pulled the plug crashing his computer then disconnected his internet connection for good measure. He’d sat for the rest of the night trying to figure out just what to do. By the time the sun had risen he’d convinced himself that he’d disconnected well before whomever had been on the other end could track him. He’d been wrong of course.

It had taken three days but they had found him. They had shown up at his flat in the morning before he’d even half gotten out of bed. One relatively bland guy in a suit flanked by two of the most dangerous looking men he’d ever seen. They’d hauled him off to a basement office on campus where he’d met a steel-haired woman who knew everything about him. She knew about the council flats, his mother’s abandonment, the group homes, his stint with the gang, and the Supervision Order. She’d laid out his options. It was the typical offer you just couldn’t refuse; go to jail or finish his degree and work for MI6. Of course he’d jumped at the offer.

Shawn didn’t regret the decision he’d made. It had been a good bargain the old M had struck with him. She’d got a competent computer engineer and hacker. He’d got challenging work with cutting edge technology, a place to belong and colleagues who would actually call him by his hacker handle.

Spider Walters reached out, touched the shiny new plaque on the wall of the fallen that read simply Olivia Mansfield and whispered, “Thanks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It started out as how a particular minor character became part of Q branch and somehow took a left turn into a bit of angst in the last paragraph.


	69. Would You Believe Me If I Said Yes?

“James,” Ms. Monneypenny said as Bond entered the executive suite for his debrief with M, “what’s the deal with the frankly alarming increase in innuendo between you and Q over the coms?  You better be sleeping with him now or I may have to do something drastic like shoot you again.”

Bond flashed his most charming smile at her and replied flirtatiously, “Would you believe me if I said yes?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you [Erif_Of_Taloma](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Erif_Of_Taloma/pseuds/Erif_Of_Taloma) (Kneoria on FF.net) for fixing the tone on this one.


	70. There Was A Story Behind this

It was not a sound normally heard emanating from the Quartermaster’s office so Shirley ignored it as an anomaly. Then it happened again. It was a giggle this time ending in a snort. Curious she got up from her workstation and investigated. 

What she found was Q sitting at his desk watching something on his computer. As she stood in the doorway he giggled again then looked up at her. 

“So, you going to share?”

Apparently the Quartermaster couldn’t trust himself to speak without laughing because he just beckoned her over to see what he was watching.

It was a young bulldog hopping about on a running treadmill having a grand old time and barking excitedly. Cute and worthy of a smile, maybe even a giggle but she could see nothing that would reduce the Quartermaster practically to tears from holding in his laughter. Clearly there was a story behind this.

Shirley reached over Q’s shoulder and turned off the video feed. She then patiently waited for her boss to compose himself. 

It took a couple minutes but finally Q said, “I guess you want to know what that was all about?”

“That would be nice.”

“It’s somewhat classified.”

“Just tell me why you found a cute bulldog on a treadmill so funny already.”

“My brother Mycroft had an investigatory job for my other brother Sherlock and his partner. It required them to go to Scotland and they couldn’t take Gladstone, the bulldog, with them so Mycroft was stuck dog sitting.”

Shirley had to smile a bit at that image. Mycroft Holmes one of the scariest men she had ever had the occasion to meet dog sitting.

Q continued, “Well Mycroft was on the treadmill yesterday when a call came in from the cousins. The particular person involved is not the easiest person in the world to deal with and is in many ways Mycroft’s equal in deal making. Mycroft had been trying for weeks to get a particular piece of information. They wanted a favor in return and I have it on good authority that Mycroft was not about to let them get the better of him on that front again. Apparently during the resultant heated telephone exchange Mycroft got off the treadmill leaving it running. Gladstone got curious and got on. The result is what you saw.”

“And this reduces you to hysterics because?” Shirley asked.

“Because, all the barking and yapping resulted in the particular counterpart across the pond inquiring about the noise. Mycroft sent a video. When everything had calmed down Mycroft had managed to get his information and some additional concessions as well.”

“Oh, so when British diplomacy fails we pull out the secret weapon, the British bull-pup?”

“Not only that but my brother, who for years has eschewed canine companionship now owes one to Gladstone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one goes out to Potato the bulldog. Enjoy. 
> 
> Gentle readers, you are getting a slew of updates today because I was stuck in a place with absurdly slow internet and couldn't upload. Things most likely will slow down after this because a plot bunny is nibbling on my toes and insisting upon being written.


	71. I Need Some Plasters

Q silently unlocked his door and slipped into the darkened foyer. He’d been on his way home when his security system had alerted him that there was an intruder in his flat. Normal protocol would have been to fall back to a public location, call it in, and let MI6 security deal with the intruder. Q had decided not to follow protocol. Based upon which sensors had been tripped and in what order Q had a sneaking suspicion about what he was going to find in his living room. He wasn’t wrong. There, sitting on his sofa and polishing off his supply of hard liquor, was James bloody Bond. Q deactivated the experimental Taser he’d been holding, dropped his gear, and headed for the loo where his ridiculously over sized first aid kit resided. 

As he pulled the kit, really a medium sized plastic tub, he wondered just when it had become normal to arrive home to one or another battered 00 in the process of consuming his liquor, his leftovers and/or his stash of sweets. Most often the culprit was 007 but Q recalled he’d had all of the current nine on his couch at one point or another over the last half year. Sometimes they’d ring the bell to his flat or follow him home but other times he’d just arrive to find them ensconced on the sofa, his guest bedroom, or the bathroom. They’d all arrived in various states of disrepair. He’d patched them up, provided food, water and on at least one occasion a hand to hold. Some would leave immediately while others, once again 007 most often, would hang around for a day or two. 

Q didn’t really understand just why a bunch of hardened spies and assassins seemed to come to him for comfort. It was the Psyc Department’s opinion, rendered the one time Q had mentioned the behavior in passing, that they were mooching off his good graces. Q wasn’t so sure. This was mainly because it seemed every time he had a 00 guest a couple of days later something would appear in his flat. If 006 or 007 polished off the scotch or the vodka he’d find a new bottle stashed in an odd spot. If 002 raided the pantry; a home cooked meal with heating instructions would be in the refrigerator. Once when 004 ate all the pudding he’d ended up with a gift subscription to a sweet-of-the-month club. Of course he never, ever had to restock the first aid kit. One would think it was a mythical cornucopia given the speed at which it replenished itself. 

Q wrenched his mind back to the task at hand. 007 was waiting patiently with unknown injuries for him to get his act together.

“So,” Q said as he hauled the tub out of the loo, “how bad is it this time?”

007 stood and shrugged off his shirt with a wince, “I need some plasters.” He turned to show his back. “Since I’m not double jointed and don’t have eyes in the back of my head I found I needed assistance.” 

Q took a look, “Ah, minor shrapnel from the building explosion I see.” 

He looked closer. There didn’t appear to be anything much stuck in the small wounds.

“Yep, plasters and maybe a butterfly bandage or two. Sit down 007,” Q said as he prepared to once again patch up his agent.


	72. He Could Climb That Tree

"You're too little," Sherlock said. "You won't be able to reach the first branch."

Quentin had just looked at his middle brother. He knew he could climb that tree. The first branch was a simple logistics problem. Three boards, some clamps, and a bit of rope. The look on Sherlock's face had been worth it despite the fact that Mycroft had to get the ladder to get him down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I see Quentin as about 5 in this to Sherlock's 7 and Mycroft's 14. The tree in question is the one that fell over in Chapter 14.


	73. I Said 5 Grand Not 5 Hundred

As the coffin was lowered into the ground I raised my eyes to look at my fellow mourners.  Now I’m no spy but I work with them and I’ve picked up a thing or two over the years.  I postulated that I could tell from body language and expression alone just who among our number had been truly _hers_. 

I myself was one of those.  I’d been fresh out of University and had thought that a stint in the government might be an appropriate addition to my CV.  Instead what I found in the Ministry of Transportation was mind-numbing boredom inter-spaced with frustration.  All of which probably explained my reaction to the phone call that ultimately changed the course of both my life and my career. 

“Accounting department, Fred speaking.”

“I said 5 grand not 5 hundred,” snarled an angry voice on a crackly line, “the whole thing is going to go tits up if I can’t purchase the product!”

I could have passed this one off.  As a junior member of the department technically I was supposed to transfer this sort of thing up the line.

Instead I asked, “What was the requisition number?”

My caller spat a nine digit code.  I searched in the computer and got nothing.  I broadened my search to include other departments result: classified.  Classified?

“Well that’s just lovely,” I said stalling.  “Do you happen to know the expenditure category code?”

The voice, a bit calmer now, gave me another number.

I didn’t recognize it.  It clearly wasn’t one of ours.  Once again I could have transferred the responsibility.  I looked up the code instead.  It belonged to SIS operations.  Well that explained the _classified_ result. 

“It’s still not bringing it up,” I said truthfully and then in a fit of helpfulness added, “Maybe we can work the other end of your problem.  You need 4,500 correct?  I can authorize a credit card for that.”

“No good,” the voice was much calmer now, “I’m in Mexico and that could set off alarm bells I’m not currently equipped to deal with.”

I thought for a minute then after a few questions made a suggestion.  My caller, whom I now was quite sure was an MI6 agent on assignment, was amenable.  We spent a quarter hour hashing out details involving a quick trip across the U.S. border and some ubiquitous southwestern casual apparel.  He thanked me for my assistance and rang off.  I didn’t think much about the whole thing until a week or so later when my boss stormed into the closet that happened to be my office. 

“Dammit Fred,” he hissed at me, “Why didn’t you tell me you’d applied for a lateral transfer to SIS!”

I blinked and hopefully kept the surprise off my face, “I wouldn’t make much of a spy if I couldn’t keep confidential things confidential.  Loose lips sink ships and all that.”

He just stared at me for a moment.

“Well,” he finally said, “someone is in the foyer to collect you.  You’d better go.”

I went.  I was met by a gentleman who introduced himself as Mr. Tanner.  He escorted me not as I had suspected to some sort of holding cell in the bowls of the intelligence establishment but instead into the upper echelons of MI6.

I was left with an iron jawed lady who looked me over and asked with the barest hit of a smile, “Loose lips sink ships Mr. Smythe?”

From that point on I had belonged not only to MI6 but to M as well.

I had closed my eyes at the memory.  When I opened them again the crowd was starting to disperse.  I spotted some of the obvious members of the fraternity to which I belonged.  Tanner, Moneypenny, a heavily disguised Quartermaster whom I only identified because he was escorted by two 00’s.  Bond was conspicuous by his absence. Given what little I had heard about the events in Scotland it was understandable.  Then there were the others whom I hadn’t known about; a socialite, a member of the fourth estate who was clearly not working right now, some members of the diplomatic corps, a few governmental types, and a politician or two.  I even thought I saw a rather famous, or infamous, detective in the crowd.  That man, however, was accompanied by a somewhat rumpled silver haired gentleman rather than his known associate so I may have been mistaken.  All in all a rather unique group of highly accomplished individuals come amongst all the others to pay homage and remember a great lady.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason my muse has been hung up lately on origin stories for the OCs who have come to prominence in this series and this is Fred from accounting’s tale.


	74. The Fourth Volume Was Missing

Mycroft Holmes leaned back in his chair, laced his hands together and stared at the backside of his office door in an attempt to regain his composure.  There was nothing more he could do about the suddenly activated ancient protocols until the teams performing the archives research regarding the origin and scope of said protocols tendered their initial reports.  Any results from the Quartermaster on the inexplicable failures of the security system would not arrive until, at the earliest, late afternoon assuming of course that there were no active missions requiring his special skill set.  Abagail his P.A. was overseeing the CCTV search and would notify him of the results.  He had even managed to insure that Sherlock was investigating not only Lestrade’s presumed terrorist cell but also attempting to find the medieval sword that had in all probability caused their demise.  All in all everything that could be done had been done and all that remained to do was wait. 

Mycroft was no stranger to waiting.  In fact, urging restraint from precipitous action was a large part of his position.  So few really understood the subtle difference in asking _What should I do?_ as opposed to _What needs to be done?_ and that doing nothing was indeed an appropriate response in certain cases. 

Even though there was nothing that needed to be done about the most active issues Mycroft felt uneasy.  Something was not quite right.  He turned in his chair and gazed at his official office.  Credenza, window, guest chairs with side table between them, bookcase…ah, that was it.  The forth volume was missing.  Mycroft smiled and made a mental note to ask John Watson what he thought of _The Looking Glass War_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you unfamiliar, the book title mentioned is the fourth in the series by John le Carre containing the character George Smiley.  Do not worry gentle readers if this particular snippet feels a little vague.  It’s a subsidiary scene to a work in progress.  All will make sense eventually.


	75. Of Course I'll Keep An Eye On Your Cat

It had been a while since Afghanistan and I had forgotten what a social animal John Watson was.  Observing him in the _natural habitat_ of his local forcibly reminded me of same.  He couldn’t get to the bar and back to obtain our second round of the night without several attempts to engage him in conversation and the inevitable good looking flirtatious female.  It was clear to me that John, Three Continents, Watson still had it.  The only difference I could see was that he didn’t seem to be on the pull right now.  Oh he’d flirt back just enough to make the lady in question feel special but didn’t close in for the kill so to speak.  Interesting.

“So,” I started in as he placed my pint on the table and sat down, “How are things at the Circus?”

Both he and I worked occasionally for MI 6, John as a locum in their medical division and myself on call for veterinarian needs.  The latter occurred more than one might expect but clearly not as often as the need for an extra Doctor.  I did get some of the gossip as I also tended to treat a variety of pets belonging to MI 6 employees but nowhere near as much as I would working even part time _in-house_ so to speak.  All of which meant when John and I got together for drinks I tended to ask for an update.

John took a sip of his and settled back in the seat of the booth.  I knew that posture.  John had taken on his storyteller persona.  Whatever he was about to impart was going to be good.

“Remember Virginia the cat?” he asked me.

“That’s the stray I treated who ended up with Director Holmes yes?”

“That’s the one,” John confirmed and continued, “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t been treated the resultant injuries but Virginia managed to do what terrorists and other agencies have tried and failed.”

John took another sip of beer then intoned, “She managed to take one 00 out of commission for a couple of weeks and cause rather serious injury to another!”

I knew there was more to the story than that so I played straight man and asked, “You are telling me that one small grey and white tabby injured two of her majesty’s most highly skilled and trained agents one badly enough to require medical leave?

John just grinned, “It seems Director Holmes ended up out of the country several weeks ago and the Quartermaster said _Of course I’ll keep an eye on your cat while you are gone_.  Now Q-branch had been having a rodent infestation so the Quartermaster decided to bring Virginia to work with him and kill two birds with one stone so to speak.  Apparently, things were going just fine with a precipitous decline in the local rodent population until last Wednesday.”

John paused for another sip.

“Virginia had flushed a rather large rat from one of the labs and pursued it into the main Q-branch bullpen.  That in and of itself wouldn’t have been a problem except that 006 and 007 fresh off a mission were coming into the branch at the same time.  The rat, with Virginia in hot pursuit, headed for the open door.  Q yelled _grab her_ and the 00s proceeded to knock their heads together rather forcibly in their attempt to do so.  Unfortunately they missed the grab and both animals escaped into the main MI 6 basement level.”

I could see where this was going. 

“00’s have hard heads so there wasn’t much damage at that point and Q ordered them after the cat.  Surprisingly both 00s were still wearing functioning ear pieces; Virginia had a tracker embedded in her collar so Q commandeered a com set up and proceeded to run an impromptu mission entitled _Kill the Rat_.  By the time the dust had settled some 20 minutes later 006 had an ankle sprain serious enough to keep him off it for a week or more, 007 required stitches, the employee gym was a shambles, and Virginia had slain the offending rodent.  Officially I think they are calling it a training accident.”

“I imagine the security footage of the chase must have been quite something,” I chuckled imagining the scene.

“It would have been,” John replied, “but it inexplicably was corrupted.  Q said it had something to do with how he had to route the communications to the ear pieces.”

“You believe that?” I asked.

“I like my electronics to continue working,” was John’s only reply.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is it about secondary characters, both mine and canon, hijacking these snippets with intermittent 1st person narratives?  If you didn’t figure it out the person here is Eric Nelson the vet John knew in Afghanistan who first appears in Conversations Chapter 57.  John is referencing some of the events that resulted in the memo contained in Chapter 64.


	76. It Was Unseasonably Warm That Spring

As I walked from Baker Street station toward the flat I considered the differences between practicing medicine in a theater of war and my most recent locum shift at the A & E.  Most doctors would have called the day I had just had hectic.  For me it had seemed a bit busy but otherwise uneventful.  The most challenging patients didn’t arrive all at once, triage was straight forward, and I actually had the supplies I needed to properly treat what was in front of me.  The worst part of the whole thing in my opinion had been the paperwork.  Typing things into a computer was not something I did with any rapidity although, due to practice with my blog, I was probably better at condensing my thoughts into written form than most of my fellow physicians.  

Sherlock had not had a case for a couple of days so I had no idea what I’d be walking into at the flat.  Hopefully it wouldn’t be an experiment that smelled of ammonia and decomposing pond scum like the last time there had been a lull in _the work_.  I paused in the front hall and sniffed cautiously.  I could smell nothing.  So far so good.  I climbed the 17 steps to 221B and found Sherlock actually in working mode.  He had what looked like a Yard investigatory file spread out all over the sitting room.  The man himself was seated in his chair hands steepled under his chin clearly thinking.  I glanced around.  What I noticed first was the style of the file folder and the big red CLOSED stamped on its cover.  There was a second file sitting on the floor next to his chair. 

“Cold case?” I asked as I detoured around the detritus heading for the kitchen. 

The reply I received was a grunt.  That meant he wasn’t so immersed in his mind palace that he wouldn’t want tea.  I made two cups and brought him one.  He accepted it and surprisingly started to drink it as I sat in my chair.  We sat in companionable silence for a bit before Sherlock began to speak. 

“It’s one of Lestrade’s old cases,” Sherlock started explaining.  “45 year old female, diabetic, controlled with exercise, diet and medication found by her husband in their flat dressed in her workout togs.” 

“Hypoglycemia after exercise?” I hazarded a guess. 

“That’s what they concluded.  It appeared that she had returned from her morning jog, took a roast out of the freezer to thaw and neglected to check her blood sugar.  Her husband didn’t find her until he returned from work.”  

“Appeared?” 

Holmes was always careful with his word choice so I knew something was up. 

“Lestrade was relatively clever for once,” Sherlock inclined his head at a report that was hanging half off the coffee table. “He noted the state of the roast and used it to narrow down the time of death.” 

“Closed because?” I questioned. 

“While the couple had been having domestic issues involving money according to the neighbors but the husband had an alibi.  He was in a meeting at the time.” 

“So why did Lestrade want you to look at it?” 

“Partly a hunch on his part,” Sherlock replied.  “He told me there was something off about the husband.  He also found it strange that she died of hypoglycemic complications when the sugar pills were found spilled on the floor.” 

“Enough control to open the bottle but not enough to take them.  Coma usually doesn’t happen that fast.” 

Sherlock smiled at me as if I’d said something very cleaver. 

“He’s on a new case.  Similar pattern and the husband just happens to be the nephew of the husband in this case.” 

“Ah,” I said.  “Any chance of it being a coincidence?” 

“The scenarios were identical right down to the thawing roast on the counter and a meeting alibi for the husband.  The only coincidence is that Lestrade ended up on both cases.”  

“So it’s a cold case gone warm again,” I said jokingly. 

Sherlock sat straight up as if he’d been poked. 

“Hand me a laptop,” he ordered. 

I rummaged around on the table and came up with a laptop.  For once it was Sherlock’s rather than mine.  After a few minutes of mucking about on the internet I heard the sound I had expected.  It was the soft _ha_ that Sherlock unconsciously made when he had reached the end of a series of deductions.  

He looked up then.  I raised an eyebrow in an unspoken request for him to amaze me once again.  He obliged by handing me a photograph from the table followed by one from the file by his chair.  The photos were of two different kitchens both of which looked to have been thoroughly searched.  In both photos I could see the body, an open bottle of sugar pills and a roast. 

“It’s the nephew and the uncle,” he stated flatly.  “If they search the nephew’s belongings they will find a stash of pills that are indistinguishable from sugar pills but made out of starch.  The uncle most likely disposed of the ones he used long ago.” 

“How do you know?” 

“Look at the roast,” Sherlock indicated the older photo.  “It was unseasonably warm that spring.  The thawing time for that roast was faster than normal giving the husband a shorter window to cover with an alibi.  The nephew attempted to copy his uncle but didn’t factor in the ambient temperature so his alibi isn’t quite so tight.” 

“Amazing!” I said. 

“Lestrade should be able to work with this and confirm my deductions,” Sherlock whipped out his mobile and started texting.  

I had an idea then and just couldn’t resist. 

“Well that’s another one solved,” I remarked.  “I should write it up.  Maybe I’ll work in something about the two _meating_ their downfall.” 

Sherlock stopped texting and glared. 


	77. It Only Hurts When I Move My Shoulder

I had to admit that the crime scene did have some measure of interest.  The body was laid out arms and legs outstretched.  The dust was eloquent.  It clearly showed that the body had been placed in another pose prior to being moved into its final position.  He’d even brought his own dust to make sure the imprint was clear.  The body was centered in a circle and a square making a rather good approximation of _Vitruvian Man_.  Someone fancied himself an artist.  The fact that the circle and the square were made out of the corpse’s own small intestine made him a vivisectionist as well.

Watson looked up at me from his kneeling position by the corpse’s left shoulder, “Hit on the head then drugged.  He was alive, paralyzed and maybe even conscious when this was done.”

One of the PCs behind me made a choking sound and abruptly left the room.  I ignored him in favor of making a circuit of the body.  John stood up stripping off his gloves with the economy of motion only found in forensic technicians and medical professionals.  Lestrade shifted his weight.  It would be less than five seconds before he’d turn in my direction and ask.

“What do you have?”

“Your victim is a local.  He was lured into this building with an offer of drugs, cocaine judging by the state of his nostrils.  He was struck from behind with that galvanized pipe leaning behind the radiator, there won’t be any prints, then drugged with a preloaded syringe or epi-pen.  The perpetrator was between 85 and 90 kg and 185 cm.  He’s had medical training and used nitrile gloves.  He wants to send a message.”

“Well, I understand how you figured out about half of that and what I’m going to need to prove it,” Lestrade stated.  “You are going to have to explain the rest of it though.”

I caught a slight movement out of the corner of my eye.  John was making his _be nice_ face.  I mentally sighed and verbally walked Lestrade through the sequence of deductions.  I was rewarded with a smile.

As Lestrade started to give specific instructions to the forensics technicians I collected Watson with a simple inclination of my head.  It was dusk and the fog had moved in during the short time we’d been inside.  Despite that there were a moderate number of persons hanging about beyond the police tape.  I glanced at them hoping that none were bona fide members of the fourth estate.  Not that it mattered much given the advances in mobile technology.  These days anyone could manage to take high resolution video and sell it to the highest bidder.  At least I wasn’t stuck wearing _the hat_.

Surprisingly none of the hangers on seemed to be paying much attention to either John or myself with the exception of…oh!

There are times I really appreciate John Watson.  All it took was a slight hesitation in my stride and a seemingly inadvertent brush of my tense arm against his for him to know that something was up.  He bumped my elbow in return acknowledging my signal.

“Shall I ring for Chinese?” he asked half extracting his mobile, subtly letting me know that he was not carrying his gun.

“Not tonight I think,” I replied as we passed by the constable on perimeter duty.

I angled our course toward the interested bystander but something must have tipped him off because he turned as if bored and ambled off.  I increased my pace slightly, John matching, to attempt to close the distance without it looking too obvious that we were doing so.  No luck with that.  It became obvious that our quarry was on to us when he darted into an alleyway in the middle of the next block.  I took off, John right at my heels. 

Within a few turns it was obvious that the suspect knew the immediate vicinity very well indeed.  While I had my mind-palace knowledge of the streets of London, this person was intimate with the area down to the level of knowing which bins could be pushed, what gates were unlocked, which fences were climbable and the exact location of anything useful in slowing down a pursuer.  Avoiding the obstacles and attempting to determine an intersecting course meant that I didn’t realize our quarry had flanked us until John went careening, shoulder first, into the side of a building. 

I whirled into a defensive stance just in time to see John, clearly in pain, attempting to sweep his attacker’s feet as well as connecting a good right hook before being slammed into the wall again and slumping to the ground.  Watson’s actions gave me enough time to launch myself at the suspect before he could fully turn to face me.  It took some effort but I soon had the man on the ground with my knee in his back.  By the time Lestrade and his officers showed up, summoned by John’s surreptitious call when he’d asked me about takeaway, our attacker might have acquired a dislocated shoulder and at least one broken rib.  His injuries were easily justified as self-defense on my part because the man was, in fact, a rather skilled MMA fighter.

As soon as our attacker was secure I went to determine John’s condition.  I knew due to the nature and ferocity of the attack that concussion and or major injury was a possibility.  One of the constables Lestrade had brought was kneeling by his side attempting to convince him that calling an ambulance might be a good idea. 

I knew all was well when I heard John say in an annoyed tone, “I’m a Doctor and I know I am not concussed.  It only hurts when I move my shoulder and that’s easily sorted by ice and painkillers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I've mentioned in the notes previously I don't "hear" Sherlock very often. Thus it was surprising to me when he chimed in loud and clear in response to this prompt.


	78. Was There a Pattern?

I woke up in Sherlock’s bed.  No, it wasn’t like that.  I felt like shit and ached as if I had lost a fight.  Oh yeah, I’d been slammed into a brick wall yesterday; twice. 

My bladder was clamoring for attention so I started to get out of bed only to realize rather quickly that rolling onto my left side was a distinctly bad idea.  A number of swears later I managed to reverse direction and get myself upright.  It was then I discovered a glass of water along with a couple of paracetamol sitting on the night stand.  There were also two familiar looking prescription bottles.  Both of them were mine.  One contained an opioid pain killer while the other held muscle relaxants.  The bottles had been hidden in the toes of my military dress shoes which had been stored in a dusty box in the top of my wardrobe.  .  I took the paracetamol then put the bottles into the pocket of my robe which had been conveniently placed on a nearby chair.  I’d deal with finding a new hiding place for them later.  First order of business was the loo and second was a shower.

I used the shower to make a quick self-assessment.  There was some minor bruising and contusions but clearly the shoulder was the worst of it.  While the hot water helped I was pretty damn sure I’d need the muscle relaxants come evening. 

I managed to get dressed and down to the sitting room just as Mrs. Hudson stuck her head in the door.  She had come bearing _extra_ scones.  I didn’t think I looked that bad but she fussed over me a bit and made me tea to go with the scones all the while insisting that she was _not your housekeeper dear_.  By the time she was done I had an update on everything that had happened of any note within a 3 block radius within the last two days as well as a promise that she’d be up with lunch later.  That left me sitting in my chair with a strange sense of déjà vu.  

Was there a pattern?  It took me a bit since I don’t have quasi-eidetic memory like Sherlock does.  It did seem that whenever I acquired more than superficial injuries on a case I’d end up in Sherlock’s bed, Mrs. Hudson would fuss and ply me with baked goods or other food and…Sherlock pounded up the stairs and through the door.  He looked around, grunted in approval upon spotting the scones, then smiled and tossed a small plastic jar at me. 

I looked at it and realized it was a jar of an analgesic cream.  Not just the standard Boots version either.  No this was the high end stuff Sherlock got from a former client of his who was a compounding pharmacist and herbalist and who’s store was halfway across London.  Yes I concluded as Sherlock took himself into the kitchen to acquire a mug, there definitely was a pattern to this.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This occurs immediately after Chapter 77.


	79. He Couldn't Sleep In That Bed

It was almost dawn by the time they’d said, or in many cases not said, all that was necessary.  Quentin had to admit to himself that in some ways it was easier when home truths could be dispensed with minimal words actually spoken.  Thus it was that twilight found him and Sherlock traipsing from Mycroft’s suite down the corridor toward their respective historic rooms.

Quentin opened his door and froze for the second time in less than 24 hours.  He couldn’t sleep in that bed, not right now.  It was just too…too something.

He felt rather than heard his brother come to stand beside him.  This time there was no soft _ha_ of the end of a chain of deductions.  Instead Sherlock simply put an arm gently around his shoulders and said, “Come.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here...have another chapter. My muse suddenly tossed this one at me late last night. This one occurs immediately after 50 Reasons Chapter 15 and may not make complete sense without it.


	80. Push It and See What Happenened

Bond trotted down the empty corridor, his bare feet making little sound on the tiled floor.  He paused as he came to an intersection listening carefully, hoping against hope that he’d encounter a denizen of this complex from whom he could acquire a weapon, a key card and potentially some trousers not necessarily in that order.  In point of fact Bond considered the trousers the most pressing need at the moment.  Running around a soviet style bunker complex in only one’s pants was courting frostbite especially since the small vents in the ceiling seemed to be spewing nothing but frigid air. 

Bond did have to give his opponents credit.  When they’d caught him they hadn’t bothered to interrogate him.  No they had merely stripped him of his clothes and gear then tossed him in a room that served as a cell.  Its accoutrements had been primitive to say the least; a hole for waste and a couple of bottles of water.  The only mistake they’d made had been leaving him his pants which had, courtesy of Q-branch, a couple of thin pieces of metal sewn into the waistband.  That wouldn’t have been a mistake on their part except that, unlike most of the doors he’d seen in the complex, this one had been equipped with a good old fashioned manual lock.  

He paused at another corner listening intently.  Ah, it sounded like someone was making his or her way carefully toward his position.  He flattened himself against the wall and waited.  The steps paused for a moment before continuing.  Bond pounced just as the person cleared the corner attempting a sleeper hold.  The person ducked and twisted away getting a good elbow into his side in the process.  He managed to turn his hips just in time to take the follow up punch on his thigh as opposed to in the bollocks.  Bond grabbed at an arm and threw a punch.  It was at that moment James realized just who he was fighting. He pulled the punch which allowed his opponent to scramble away and pull a gun on him.  

“Hands behind your head!” the curly headed female snarled while rolling her eyes at the ceiling.  

He should have realized that the entire complex was wired for surveillance.  Putting him in one of the few rooms with a manual lock had been intentional; a clear test of his abilities.  

“Turn around slowly and walk.  I’ll direct you.  You do anything else except breathing and you’ll be shot.”  Eve Moneypenny calmly instructed him.  

He complied.  It wasn’t long before Bond found himself facing a door labeled _Sewage Reclamation Unit_.  

“Open the door,” Moneypenny said loudly; presumably to some sort of hidden camera or microphone.  

The door obligingly opened and Bond saw a room that clearly wasn’t what the label implied.  Instead of effluent treatment equipment there were workstations and a wall of monitors showing the feeds from a variety cameras both internal and external.  There were only three other people in the room.  Bond’s quick glance at the monitors told him why.  It seemed that most of the residents of the complex were currently involved in shifting product out of and away from a burning building. 

“Stand there,” Moneypenny pointed indicating an open area near a console containing a wide array of buttons and toggle switches.  

James idly noted that one of the buttons was bright red and labeled _DO NOT PUSH_ as he moved to comply.  How refreshing to have the trap clearly labeled.  He had a sudden urge to just push it and see what happened.  

“Where did you put the cable ties?” She asked one of the people manning a console. 

“Here,” the man replied after rummaging around in a drawer for a moment and attempting to hand them to her.  

“No,” she replied, “this is what we are going to do…” 

Bond listened carefully as Moneypenny provided overly detailed instructions to her putative co-worker about how to secure him without blocking her line of fire.  Bond made his plans accordingly.  Given what he’d seen so far of the design of the complex he had a hunch and he was going to play it. 

As the man with the zip ties carefully approached, Bond caught Moneypenny’s gaze then quite deliberately glanced at the red button before focusing again on her face.  She blinked slowly in acknowledgement and moved slightly so that she was directly behind one of the workstations. 

“Turn around and kneel,” she ordered him just as the man with the zip ties came within Bond’s reach.  

Bond started to turn as if he was going to comply.  Instead he grabbed the man, slung him around and slammed his head right onto the red _DO NOT PUSH_ button.  He used his extra momentum to roll underneath the console.  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Moneypenny drop into the foot well of the workstation she’d been standing behind.  

As Bond had expected the resulting hail of gunfire decimated most everything and everyone in the room that was not currently flat on the floor.  The only problem, Bond thought to himself while he waited, was he didn’t know if the automatic system only activated once upon pressing the button or if it triggered a motion sensor.  Luckily, Moneypenny seemed to have had the same thought.  Once the guns had been silent for a minute or so she tossed something that looked like a file folder into the air.  Nothing happened. 

It didn’t take long after that for Bond to scavenge clothes and a weapon while Moneypenny plugged a thumb drive into one of the surviving terminals.  Less than ten minutes later they were on their way to the pickup point. 

00Q/00Q/00Q/00Q 

At the end of the debrief Tanner looked up from his notes and asked, “So how did you know that the button would set off a security feature?  Moneypenny only found out because the security chief was making a move on her.” 

Bond smiled, “Actually it was something Q showed me once called _The Evil Overlord’s List_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just couldn’t resist having Bond taking down a genre savvy opponent by using their own awareness against them. If anyone is interested; search for Evil Overlord’s List in TV Tropes ([Evil Overlord's List](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilOverlordList)) and take a look at items 2, 9, 65 and 90.


	81. I Didn't Mean to Insult Him

“The door is stuck,” Bond snarled over the coms.

“Shouldn’t be,” Robert who was acting as Bond’s handler whilst Q had left the branch momentarily replied, “the maintenance records say there was a crew through there less than 48 hours ago. Maybe a little more force would work?”

There was a loud report and the coms went dead.

Q walked back into the coms room less than five minutes later to find a panicky Robert frantically trying to re-establish communication all the while muttering “I didn’t know, I swear I didn’t know!” and “I didn’t mean to insult him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember Q and Bond’s exchange as he’s chasing Silva into the tube during Skyfall? Well, no one bothered to tell Robert about that.


	82. Didn't Arrive Fast Enough

Mrs. Hudson was perfectly fine which meant that Sherlock had wanted him out of the way for some reason.  The reason why was obvious and John took off for Bart’s at a dead run.  He didn’t arrive fast enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A three sentence number in the middle of The Reichenbach Falls.


	83. I Have an Idea That Just Might Work

“So what else do we need to deal with?” Mallory asked the small group who was gathered in his office.

“Personnel Issue,” Tanner replied.

Mallory sighed inwardly.  He’d been ignoring the impending problem for several months now but it looked like Tanner had decided to take the bull by the horns so to speak.

Not receiving a response Tanner picked up a file and started in, “As you are no doubt aware Bond is going to age out of the 00 program in less than six months.”

"And Trevaleyn is less than a year behind him,” Monneypenny chimed in.

_Great_ , Mallory thought, _I’m being double teamed on this_. 

He glared at both of them.  Monneypenny smiled sweetly. 

Tanner pretended not to notice and continued, “Historically the odds are pretty bad.  Most of the 00s who make it to retirement or are injured out commit suicide within five years.  Three of the ones that didn’t went the private contractor route and two of them were killed on assignment.”

Tanner handed him a list containing names, designations and cause of death.  He’d known it was bad but this was even worse than he’d expected.

He must have been scowling at the list because Moneypenny commented, “It’s not as bad for the ones who voluntarily resign from the program.”

Mallory put down the list and asked, “So what do you suggest we do about it?”

“Psychological…” Tanner started in.

“Which none of the 00s will deal with unless given a direct order,” Moneypenny interrupted.

Tanner cocked his head and completed his sentence ignoring Moneypenny’s outburst, “profiles indicate that the suicides did not have close personal relationships and probably considered themselves useless outside the program.  The few that survived in retirement either had a support network including a significant other with security clearance, found another job that they viewed as important or both.”

_He’s talking about my predecessor_ , Mallory realized.  It was as if that oblique mention of Olivia Mansfield shook something loose in his head causing him to sit up and smile.

“I think I have an idea that just might work.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This occurs sometime after 50 Reasons Chapter 50 and Conversations Chapter 37 but before the trip to Scotland in Conversations Chapter 6.


	84. He Told Me This Would Happen

Ann exited the taxi and glanced up at the hotel façade.  It was a grand old building perched atop one of San Francisco’s historic hills with the flags of all the countries who signed the United Nations Charter in 1945 flying proudly over the portico entrance.  It looked and felt a bit surreal. 

She entered and made her way toward the front desk; sensible heels clicking softly on the marble floor.  The closer she got the more the sense of unreality grew.  Ann took a surreptitious deep breath and reminded herself _He told me this would happen._  

Upon reaching the desk she removed her sunglasses turning her most brilliant smile on the young associate manning the counter, “I have a reservation. The name is Bond, Jane Bond.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who got the promotion!


	85. She Was In the Wrong Room

If the lack of surveillance equipment and the ridiculously antiquated lock hadn’t have tipped her off Ann knew from the moment she stepped in the door that she was in the wrong room. All and all it was a perfectly normal one bedroom upstairs flat in a row of converted Victorian town houses. It clearly wasn’t the lair of her target, a black hat computer hacker that had delusions of taking up where SPECTRE had left off. 

Q-branch had traced the hacker’s signal for months, finally narrowing it down to a local node. They’d gotten a break when someone had noticed that the name on the flat’s lease just happened to be an anagram of one of the multiple screen names used by the hacker. Ann, as a proto-00, had been dispatched to check out the lead and if possible eliminate the problem. 

She looked around. Something wasn’t quite right but Ann couldn’t quite place it. She decided to investigate further. After 10 minutes of poking around in cupboards, looking under furniture, and perusing the medicine cabinet she conceded that whomever lived here was either a neat freak or had one hell of a cleaning service. It hit her then. The flat was perfect; too perfect to have been lived in. Someone had done a damn good job of setting the stage but now that she suspected Ann spotted a host of little items that were not quite right. The most glaring of the inconsistencies was the lack of scratches on the wood floor under the chairs in the sitting room. There was no way that anyone had ever sat in those chairs. The throw rug that covered most of the rest of the floor was also free of indents under the sofa legs. A check inside the fridge confirmed her suspicions. There was nothing in it that would spoil or cause a mess in less than a year or five. 

Ann thought hard her gaze drifting to the ceiling. She then slipped off her shoes and padded carefully around the flat. Less than a minute later she put on her shoes again. She grinned.

“Gotcha!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Internet cookies to those of you who know where the hacker’s lair is and how Ann figured it out! This occurs before Chapter 84.


	86. He Won't Mind

Sitting on a park bench next to the Quartermaster was not how Ann had imagined the results of this particular afternoon. When she had located his most probable hiding place she had indulged in a momentary daydream about a triumphant return to Vauxhall, Quartermaster in tow. She had certainly not expected to be on the run from both MI-5 and 6 as well as from a group unknown and armed assailants with nefarious designs on said Quartermaster. Oh well, if there was one thing that her training had taught her it was that plans very rarely survived their first encounter with an enemy.

Ann considered her position. She was now the sole protector of the highest value intelligence asset in the entire United Kingdom. She needed to hide him in the most heavily surveilled piece of real estate in Europe if not the entire world. On the plus side she had with her one of the few people who knew surveillance systems and the programs used to obtain useful intelligence from them inside out and backwards. Unfortunately, said individual was currently staring at nothing in particular a pensive look on his face.

The Quartermaster looked quite a bit younger without glasses and dressed in a nondescript wind cheater. From his expression she surmised that he was still a bit disturbed about the existence of a previously unknown mole in Britain's intelligence establishment. She couldn't tell if he was more upset about the leak, the fact he hadn't found it earlier or that he was in the cross hairs of whatever scheme their unknown adversary had devised.

She looked at the time. They'd been sitting long enough.

"So," she said conversationally, "any ideas as to what to do next?"

Ann was willing to take her cue from Q. He was the best agent handler in the business. That didn't even count the fact that, as she had learned over the last few hours, he was no slouch in the actual trade craft department either.

"We've done as much as we can with the resources available," he sighed.

"Well then, it's time to liberate someone else's resources!" Ann quoted with a bravado she didn't really feel.

It was if she had poked Q in the ribs. He sat up straight then turned and smiled brightly at her. It was clear that he not only knew the source of the quote but that it had sparked an idea in that genius brain of his.

"I know just some resources to liberate," he said as he stood up.

"Considering the situation I don't suppose we are going to ask permission," she replied mimicking his movement.

Q smirked at her, "Of course not, but he won't mind."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The original prompt was "We don't need his permission. He won't mind." This takes place before Conversations Chapter 27.


	87. The Expiration Date Was Two Years Ago

"What is it about my finding items relevant to the current mission in refrigerators," Ann grumbled over the coms to Robert her handler.

"It's a side effect of your superior observational skills," Robert soothed. "No other agent would have noticed that the expiration date was two years ago and then would have bothered to look inside the coffee tin!"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another 3 sentence wonder that just appeared in my brain. Occurs after Chapter 85.


	88. He Never Held a Job

After a long locum shift at the A & E I exited the tube, looked up at the windows of our sitting room on Baker Street and was surprised to see them dark. When I’d left this morning Sherlock had been emulating a lump on the sofa, a position that generally indicated that he had no intention of stirring for a good portion of the day. I wondered what he’d gotten up to or if there was a case.

Mrs. Hudson was off at her sister’s this week so the hall was also dark. I trooped up the 17 steps and let myself in to the flat. The windows gave me enough light to see what I was doing so I hung my jacket on the hook without bothering to flip the switch. Therefore I was startled when I turned around to see Sherlock sitting in his chair, unmoving. He was dressed in one of his more formal suits and had not removed the jacket. His elbows were resting on his knees and his chin was propped on his fingers. I couldn’t see his face but his body language screamed tension and emotional upset. I headed straight for the kitchen and the tea.

When the tea was done I returned to the sitting room turning on the desk lamp as I went. In the diffuse light could see that Sherlock was mulling something over. It wasn’t the look that he got when he was rummaging about in his mind palace. No this was more a I have no real idea why something happened that way expression. I concluded that whatever he was thinking about had something to do with other people’s behavior or emotions or both. I stuck the mug of tea up under his nose and he straightened, hands coming around the cup automatically. He glanced up at me then and I watched as his formidable intellect came fully back into the present.

“Gang fight or auto accident mid-shift?” he asked.

I sat in my chair as I answered, “both actually. Altercation outside a pub and some idiot thought it would be a good idea to settle things by driving a car into the fight.”

He looked down into his cup and silence reigned again. No follow up questions or additional deductions were offered. I counted it as a win however that he didn’t seem to slip back into the state he’d been in when I’d entered. I waited. Finally he spoke.

“I don’t understand why someone would express appreciation for a failure.”

“It depends upon the situation,” I replied.

Sherlock sighed and looked up at me.

“Did I ever introduce you to Samuel?”

“One of your homeless network?” I asked.

“Yes. Lived rough by the Thames mostly,” he replied. “Schizophrenic; he never held a job. He also refused to take medication. Said it only worked to make him aware just how much his brain chemistry was messed up. Despite it all he had an incredible memory for detail. I’d pay him from time to time for odd surveillance jobs.” 

Sherlock lapsed into silence and started staring at his shoes again.

“And?” I prompted.

“He was found dead early last week. Shariah told Wiggins, Wiggins called me. No foul play. Simple heart attack; obvious. I arranged for his family to be notified. His funeral was today.”

Well that explained the suit but not the mood I thought. It wasn’t like Sherlock to get overly sentimental. No there was something else bothering my friend.

“His family thanked me.” Sherlock finally muttered. “I facilitated his life on the streets, kept him from getting to the point where he would need to accept their help and they thanked me.”

“How much did his family know about his life on the streets?” I asked.

“Unknown,” he replied. “Shariah had occasional contact with them as did Wiggins. They were not terribly surprised that I attended so they must have known that he worked for me at least occasionally.”

“Ah,” I said understanding the problem. “You have misinterpreted the nature of the sentiment.”

Sherlock cocked an eyebrow at me in question.

“Most families of patients with severe mental illness who are living on the streets have absolutely no knowledge of where their family member is. They don’t know whether they are safe and if they die they may not find out for weeks or months,” I explained. “Because he was a part of your network they had information. Even if they couldn’t help directly they knew he had some protection because of your name and your patronage.”

I didn’t bother to mention the fact that I suspected Sherlock had not only arranged for the family to be notified but had most likely expedited paperwork and possibly even called in a favor or two so that the family would not be overly financially burdened by the funeral arrangements.  
“They were clearly aware,” I continued, “that in some situations you can’t help someone who does not want to be helped. You did what others could not and that’s what they were thanking you for.”

Sherlock thought for a minute but didn’t say anything. Finally he put his empty tea mug down on the table, stood and removed his coat. Then he walked over to his violin case and prepared to play.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not quite sure where this one goes yet but it is relatively early on in the timeline.


	89. I Can't Believe She Did That

“Take the shot,” the familiar voice rang over the coms throughout Q-branch. Moments later after a pained “Agent down” from the speakers I glanced around at my co-workers’ of a scant few months reaction to the demise of a legend. The primary response, with the exception of Major Bootheroid who had his head in his hands, was expressed by a lone whisper, “I can’t believe she did that!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another 3 sentence wonder. Occurs during the opening of Skyfall. Quentin has only been working in MI 6 Q -branch for a couple of months at this point.


	90. They Just Keep Shrieking

The phone rang in Q branch.  Not just any phone but the emergency contact phone line for agents.

“Universal Exports IT department, have you tried turning it off and on again?” chirped Minion 34, otherwise known as Carrie, who was working on over 29 hours of mission time and not having left the office for the last 4 days due to 002’s fiasco in Dubai.

“Get me Q,” Bond’s familiar baritone rang out in the branch over a cacophony of screeching.

“Here 007” said Q as he entered the branch fresh from the weekly department head meeting.

“Would you trace the last 48 hours of location data from this number,” Bond said without preamble.

Q moved to his workstation to find that two employees were already working on it and that Frank had managed to give him the pertinent current location and specifications on the number Bond was using.

“So I see you managed to obtain Mr. Mitchell’s mobile,” Q remarked.  “Might I inquire as to the status of Mr. Mitchell?”

“He’s dead.”

“Oh.  That’s vexing.  I don’t think I can easily send a cleanup crew to the,” Q looked at Bond’s exact location, “the Australian Walkabout exhibit in the San Diego Zoo’s Safari Park.”

“No need,” replied Bond.

“Really?”

“He died of anaphylactic shock.”

Q couldn’t help himself, “So what lovely venomous creature from Australia did he encounter?”

“Male platypus do not take well to fights in their enclosure,” Bond said dryly.  “They also don’t like being thrown at someone.”

“And Mitchell turned out to be allergic to platypus venom?”

“Apparently so.”

“Well, I suggest you get out of there 007.  I’m starting to see activity heading in your direction.  We’ll get you the information as soon as we have it.”

“Roger,” Bond was almost inaudible over some sort of noise.

“And what is that in the background 007, is the mobile malfunctioning?”

“No, it’s the Kiwi’s.  They just keep shrieking.  They also didn’t appreciate my recent activities.”

Q had to smile as Carrie commented to another staffer clearly unaware that Bond was still on the main speakers, “I don’t care what Bond is doing, fruit shouldn’t scream like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For your edification gentle readers, the San Diego Zoo's Safari Park (located in Escondido, California) does not have an Australian exhibit...yet. They are currently building it with a projected opening in late fall 2018. There are also no platypus outside Australia...yet. As a second stage to the aforementioned exhibit they are planning to get a breeding pair! Male platypus really do have poisonous spikes and Kiwi's really do make noise. You can blame this snippet all on Erif_of_Taloma (Kenoria on FF.net)


	91. It Was Working Just Fine When I Returned It

 

“Bond,” James answered the call from the unknown number mentally thanking the Q Branch minion who retrofitted the DB5 for hands free calling.

“Ah, good. I need to know exactly what you did to your watch,” Q’s voice sounded a little strange.

“I’m sorry? It was working just fine when I returned it.”

“No, I mean which of the one-shot functions did you use that you didn’t mention?”

Bond was beginning to become concerned, “Where are you Q?”

“Maryleborne Road near the tube station.”

“I’m on my way.” Bond flipped an illegal U-turn. “What direction are you heading?”

“I’ll have to chance it.” Q was now sounding annoyed. “Oh bother.”

The sounds through the mobile were somewhat alarming then the line went dead. Bond floored it.

20 minutes later and a judicious amount of pulling rank later James had reconstructed events. Q upon discovering that he was being followed had, lifted someone’s mobile, called James, incapacitated one tail with the sedative dart watch function, then jury rigged the watch to electrically stun someone. Judging from the condition of the thug-like gentleman with the half dissected watch on his chest the on-the-fly modifications had been highly successful.

Bond notified the _powers that be_ about the situation. He then proceeded to  ensure that the attackers would be expeditiously remanded into MI 6 custody.  At that point the only question remaining was Q’s location.  James headed back to his illegally parked car to think.

As Bond started the DB5 the passenger door was opened and a slightly disheveled Q slipped in.

“Where to Quartermaster?” He asked as he pulled out into traffic.

“My flat please,” Q replied then added, “and the next time I attempt to berate you for improvising with my tech...please remind me of this incident.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to shambling for the typo spotting service.


	92. She Won’t Talk to Me

“Ah Bond, just the person I need.”

It wouldn’t have been obvious to most people but despite the breezy tone James noted that Q looked ruffled and slightly embarrassed.  Of course it was his job to notice things like that, he was one of the premier spies in one of the world’s most prestigious spy agencies after all.

“You wouldn’t happen to know…”

Q appeared to be getting more embarrassed by the moment and was trying not to show it.  It was clear to James that Q either wasn’t good yet at office gossip or maybe it was the potentially salacious nature of much of the MI 6 gossip that had him flustered.  Well he was young and relatively new to his position.  Add that to the fact that tech boffins were stereotypically bad at human intelligence and James could understand the hesitancy.  He simply raised an eyebrow and waited for Q to spit out whatever he wanted to ask.

“…just what has R so upset?  She won’t talk to me about it and...”

James decided to put Q out of his self-imposed misery.

“Yes”

Q looked at him hopefully for further clarification.

“It seems that due to a lack of people to blame for my altercation with Mr. Moran last week the powers-that-be at New Scotland Yard have decided that R’s boyfriend, D.I. Lestrade, is somehow responsible.  Apparently the presence of Mr. Holmes on the scene in addition to myself and the whole thing getting declared _need to know_ after the fact ruffled some feathers.”

James had obtained this bit of information courtesy of a pub night with John Watson.  That in and of itself had been an interesting experience.

“Oh,” Q replied.

Once again most people wouldn’t have noticed but James could tell that Q’s brain had gone into overdrive.  After a momentary pause he whirled and started typing furiously on his computer.  A few moments later he looked at James, smiled and said, “That should fix it!”

James again raised an eyebrow in mute query.

Q’s smile widened as he explained, “I’ve just expedited some paperwork!”  At Bond’s still raised eyebrow he elaborated, “In a couple of days the Yard will discover that D.I. Lestrade is one of the few of their number with adequate security clearance to be read into operations for both us and the home office.”

James thought that Q was most likely correct in his assessment.  That security clearance probably would get D.I. Lestrade off his superior’s shit list and as a side effect improve R’s mood.  Maybe Q wasn’t as bad at human intelligence as James had originally surmised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one takes place shortly after the end of Brothers Three.


	93. No Idea How They Got In

007 had no idea how the men chasing him had got in so quickly.  The only way he’d managed to avoid the incapacitating and potentially lethal security features of the villa was due to a judicious amount of direction and some hacking courtesy of Q Branch.  Unfortunately the net result was that he had been cornered in a dining room where the only exit was a set of French doors which, if opened, would set off the aforementioned security features. 

Bond looked around for something quiet to use as a weapon.  Everything he had on him, even his silenced pistol, would be too noisy.  The dining room was unhelpfully bare, only a forlorn fruitcake sat under a glass dome on the sideboard.

Less than 10 minutes and 2 opponents down, Bond sauntered out of the villa with the plans firmly in his suit jacket pocket.  He smiled as he thought about the consternation of the villa’s occupants when they found the bodies and the condition of the fruitcake in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another entry from the unusual weapons file.


	94. How Had An Hour Passed Already

I looked around at the basement flat to which Billy had led us.  Unlike most of its ilk this one had two entrances.  The one we had used was down a steep flight of steps from the side of a small back garden.  Judging from the location it looked like the stair had been installed in what had formerly been the coal chute of an old Victorian era house.  The second entrance seemed to open up into the entrance hall in the house above as opposed directly to the street that I could faintly hear through the walls.

The flat was modestly furnished and had been recently painted with what I assumed was an industrial strength mold resistant paint.  Billy was clearly familiar with the place.  He gave us a quick “cooks tour.”  I could tell Ann was a bit disconcerted by the fact that the bed was made up and that there were towels in the loo.

“Short term rental?” Ann asked?

“Nah,” Billy replied, “landlady keeps it looking _homey_ so she can show it to prospective tenants.”

“Any likelihood of us being found down here?”

“Nope,” Billy popped the terminal P, “She’s pretty much given up on renting it.  She also knows I borrow it from time to time so she’ll just assume it’s me.”

In the mean time I was looking for the closet where Billy had indicated the internet connection and router for the building were located.  I almost laughed aloud.  This was going to be much easier than I had anticipated. 

I looked at the clock when I was finished.  How had an hour passed already?  I vaguely remember Billy leaving muttering something about getting take-away.  Ann was sitting in the main room, gun drawn, still looking a bit unsettled at our new digs.

“I don’t trust this,” she said.  “This is way too convenient and exactly what we need right down to the hardware required.”  She waived her hand vaguely at the closet and my computer.  “Given all the backtracking and avoidance methods we took getting here I’m not even completely sure where we are except somewhere near Regent’s park.  Are you sure about Billy and that this whole set up is safe?”

“I’m sure,” I replied.  “I know where we are and it’s one of the safest buildings in the Greater Metropolitan London area.  I’m also confident about the state of the tech…I did install it after all.”

Ann stared at me and a couple of heart beats later I saw that she’d figured it out.  I do so love it when agents are not only competent but also intelligent and quick on the uptake.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well here we are again back with another installment of "Find/Protect the Asset." I also updated the timeline up to and including the current chapter.


	95. She Was Going To Do It

Ann read the e-mail for the sixth time in as many hours and considered its implications. She’d seen and participated in quite a bit of violence in her short life, only some of it in the course and scope of her employment. Was she prepared for this new challenge? Ann closed her eyes and thought it through again. It all boiled down to whether was she ready to do whatever it takes in the name of Queen and Country? Was she willing to take the task on despite the fact that in the best of circumstances her reward would be pecuniary with nary a word of thanks and in the worst a disavowed death in disgrace? Once again she came to the same conclusion; she was going to do it and woe betides anyone who tried to stop her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 6 hours after Chapter 48. I now have a sneaking suspicion that Ann's back story is just as screwed up as any of the other 00s.


	96. Don't Touch That!

You never know what you are going to run into when you are asked to deliver something to Q-Branch.  The first time I was down there I learned an important lesson, if it’s sitting in a box on a desk don’t touch it no matter how innocuous the whatever-it-is looks like.  I lost one of my better shirts and spent a week and a half attempting to get purple dye out of my skin in that incident.  One would think that the agents, especially the elite ones, would have learned similar lessons long ago; apparently 006 had not. 

To the best of my recollection it happened on a Thursday.  I arrived down in Q branch with a set of requisition justification paperwork.  I fully expected that Q would rant and rave about the hard-copy nature of said forms.  Unfortunately there was nothing anyone could do about it other than listen to him since the other branches of the government seemed to have stock holdings in the companies that produced carbonless copy paper.  When I arrived Q was equipping 007.  I figured if I was stealthy I could slip the pile into his In Box and make my escape without having to stick around for the inevitable grumbling.  I’d managed to get most of the way to Q’s desk before I was spotted.  I swear that man has radar built into his glasses or something.  He raised a finger at me and I knew I was stuck.  I put the paperwork down on Q’s desk and resigned myself to wait.

That was when 006 walked in.  I was happy to observe that he didn’t make it as far into the branch as I had before Q noticed and signaled him to wait.  As opposed to sitting still 006 then proceeded to prowl about the main room, looking over people’s shoulders and generally investigating whatever was visible on desks.  He stopped in front of one desk and picked up what looked like a bracelet from out of a box. 

He played with it for a few moments before Q noticed and snapped, “Don’t touch that!”

The words were barely out of Q’s mouth when there was a sudden ZZZTTT noise and 006 went down like a felled tree.   The bracelet flew in a nice arc, hit the floor and ended up under a desk halfway across the room. 

Q sighed, pinched his nose behind his glasses then went to retrieve it, stepping over 006’s recumbent form on the way.  By the time he’d returned the bracelet to its original box 006 was sitting up with help from 007 who was making a valiant attempt not to laugh. 

Q didn’t even crack a smile.  He merely remarked in that rather dry tone of his, “Would someone please let R know that she can skip the proof of concept testing and proceed directly to calibration.”

At that point I made a mental note never to play poker with the head of Q branch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An early Fred snippet, before he was assigned to Q branch. Also another reason why 006 would recommend him for such an assignment.


	97. I Don't Know Much About Architecture

The relentless California summer had abated somewhat as the sun retreated to the horizon.  For lack of anything better to do James watched the tourists, many with children in tow, walking down the street and attempted to determine their origin.  He wondered again just why she’d requested this particular location for a meeting.  He’d also been surprised at her specification regarding what to wear.  James had suspected he would stand out but in the twenty minutes he’d been waiting he’d seen sartorial offerings ranging from beach casual to black tie.  His own Tom Ford suit with open collared shirt, tie stashed in the inside pocket just in case, was not at all out of place.

James took another glance around and noticed a petite older lady expertly weaving in and out of the clumps of tourists.  He had to admire the way she used the ebb and flow of the crowd to mask her movements.  She wasn’t even trying but James knew she would be damn hard to follow unobtrusively.  This, he knew, was a small part of the reason why she was considered a legend. 

“Henrietta,” Bond made a slight bow and offered her his arm, “You are as stunning as ever.”

“James.  You are looking well yourself,” she replied as she accepted his offer.

“I must admit I was a little surprised at your selection of locations.”

She smiled up at him as they strolled down the street, “It has some unique advantages.  There’s also something to be said for the scenery.” 

“It is quite varied,” he remarked indicating with his eyes a lady in a sari eating ice cream who was standing between a Sikh in a turban and a tanned blond wearing a tank top and ragged shorts.

“And that’s just the people,” Hetty replied.  “There’s also quite an array of structural styles and ornamentation.”

James looked at the buildings then asked, “I don’t know much about architecture but is there something off about the buildings?”

“Most people don’t notice,” she replied, “but the entire block is set up with forced perspective.  The ground floors are normal sized but subsequent floors get smaller in height, window size and embellishments.  If I recall correctly the ratio is something like 5/8th  scale for the first floor and half scale for any subsequent floors.”

“Interesting.”

“You’ll also notice that the whole street is designed to emphasize the buildings at both ends.”

James took a good look and commented, “In addition there’s an optical illusion.  It looks longer heading east than west.” 

“All part of the original design.  It’s a stunning use of techniques developed for the early motion picture industry.”

They continued walking.  James had noticed earlier that she had apparently not brought any bodyguards so he kept an eye open for potential threats, not that any were particularly likely in this place.  Hetty chuckled slightly.  It was clear she’d picked up on the change in his behavior but she otherwise didn’t comment on it, she merely continued subtly directing their progress. 

They ended up in a small, tastefully decorated courtyard.  Hetty dropped his arm and approached a nondescript grey-green door with a plaque bearing the number 33.  She flipped open a small brass plate next to the door and inserted a card into the reader hidden behind it.  There was a hum, a click and the door opened.

Hetty grinned up at him, “Welcome to one of the most exclusive dining establishments in greater Los Angeles.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Internet cookies to those who can figure out where Hetty took James to dinner.


	98. Toss Something Over It

Bond was being monitored from the main room of Q-Branch for the simple reason that of the three active missions his was the least sensitive.  Thus, when a pop sounded over the coms heads came up all over the room.  It wasn’t a benign sounding pop like someone fussing with bubble wrap and it wasn’t as deadly as the bark of a silenced weapon.  No this was a sound suggestive of explosives except for the volume.

“Bond?”

There was a soft grunt in reply.  Those members of the branch who had worked with the elite agents recognized it as 00 speak for _not now I’m going to be busy in a moment_.  Sure enough a moment later sounds of a scuffle were clearly audible.

“Target secure,” said Bond.

“Good,” replied Q.  “Load him in Mercedes trunk.  Once you drive past the perimeter guards you should make the exfil point in less than an hour.”

“Potentially a bit more than an hour, I have a slight problem.”

“A problem?”

“I needed to get our target out of line of sight of the front guards so I jury rigged one of his antique grenades to explode the primer without setting off the main charge.  Unfortunately that means I now have black powder all over a chair.”

“Wonderful,” Q sighed.  “You might as well leave some writing on the wall saying _I kidnapped your retired spy_.”

“Do you think if I toss something over it that they wouldn’t notice?”

Q made a rude sounding noise at Bond’s suggestion then after a momentary pause hummed.  Everyone in the branch knew what that hum meant; Q was getting creative.

“Were there painting supplies in the basement or the garage?” Q asked.

Less than 40 minutes, some re-purposed bedding, and a bit of rearranged furniture later Bond was on his way.


	99. Going To Be Interesting

It was my first day officially embedded in Q-branch.

“Hey Fred,” Shirley said as she handed me a fat, battered envelope labeled OOQ, “Moneypenny and Trevelyan observed an incident of PDA in the office yesterday.”

This was going to be interesting I thought.

_00Q/00Q/00Q/00Q_

Robert looked around furtively as he handed over the stack of mail for the training division and said quietly, “Pass the word, whatever you do don’t flirt with the Quartermaster he’s now dating a 00.”

Of course in a building full of spies the rumor mill was bound to be robust Ann thought as she nodded.  If this particular rumor was true it was going to be interesting.

_00Q/00Q/00Q/00Q_

Tanner handed the file to M, “You heard the latest, Sir?”

“Yes, Mr. Smythe has won the betting pool again.”

Tanner smirked “Well, it’s definitely going to be interesting from here on in then.”

_00Q/00Q/00Q/00Q_

“Yes, we are shagging,” Bond answered the question Trevelyan had not asked when he handed James his beer.

Alec wisely didn’t say anything.

“Yes, I care for him,” he continued after taking a drink, “and no, I have no idea where this is going but knowing him it’s going to be interesting.”

_00Q/00Q/00Q/00Q_

Moneypenny had locked Q’s office door and turned on the ECM before asking, “So you and Bond in a relationship?”

Q cocked his head at her and replied, “I honestly don’t know quite what to call it.  Whatever it is its going to be interesting.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 5 interrelated 3 sentence fictions and the MI6 rumor mill goes wild! This occurs after [50R - Chapter 49](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1058690/chapters/5540861) and [Con - Chapter 8](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2804096/chapters/8184614).


End file.
